•^^--••*^AAA 


IBRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 
ERNST  GELLHORN 


Design  by  Aubrey  Beardsley 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET 
IN  PARIS 


rue 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET 
IN  PARIS 


BY  <ANATOLC 

ji 


DODD-MEAD  6?  COMPANY 


Published  in  the  U.  S.  A.,  1922 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY,  INC. 


FRINTBU  IN  U.  S.  A. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET 
IN  PARIS 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 


CHAPTER  I 


ONSIEUR  BERGERET  was  seated 
at  table  taking  his  frugal  evening 
meal.  Riquet  lay  at  his  feet  on 
a  tapestry  cushion.  Riquet  had  a 
religious  soul;  he  rendered  divine 
honours  to  mankind.  He  regarded  his  master 
as  very  good  and  very  great.  But  it  was  chiefly 
when  he  saw  him  at  table  that  he  realized  the 
sovereign  greatness  and  goodness  of  Monsieur 
Bergeret. 

If,  to  Riquet,  all  things  pertaining  to  food  were 
precious  and  impressive,  those  pertaining  to  the 
food  of  man  were  sacred.  He  venerated  the  dining- 
room  as  a  temple,  the  table  as  an  altar.  During 
meals  he  kept  his  place  at  his  master's  feet,  in  silence 
and  immobility. 

"It's  a  spring  chicken,"  said  old  Angelique  as 
she  placed  the  dish  upon  the  table. 

"Good.    Be  kind  enough  to  carve  it,  then,"  said 

3 


4      MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Monsieur  Bergeret,  who  was  a  poor  hand  with 
weapons  and  quite  hopeless  as  a  carver. 

"Willingly,"  said  Angelique,  "but  carving  isn't 
woman's  work,  it's  the  gentlemen  who  ought  to 
carve  poultry." 

"I  don't  know  how  to  carve." 

"Monsieur  ought  to  know." 

This  dialogue  was  by  no  means  new.  Angelique 
and  her  master  exchanged  similar  remarks  every 
time  that  game  or  poultry  came  to  the  table.  It 
was  not  flippantly,  it  was  certainly  not  to 
save  herself  trouble,  that  the  old  servant  persisted 
in  offering  her  master  the  carving-knife  as 
a  token  of  the  respect  which  was  due  to  him.  In 
the  peasant  class  from  which  she  had  sprung 
and  also  in  the  little  middle-class  households  where 
she  had  been  in  service,  it  was  a  tradition 
that  it  was  the  master's  duty  to  carve.  The 
faithful  old  soul's  respect  for  tradition  was  pro- 
found. She  did  not  think  it  right  that  Monsieur 
Bergeret  should  fall  short  of  it,  that  he  should 
delegate  to  her  the  performance  of  so  authorita- 
tive a  function,  that  he  should  fail  to  carve  at  his 
own  table,  since  he  was  not  grand  enough  to  em- 
ploy a  butler  to  do  it  for  him,  like  the  Breces, 
the  Bonmonts  and  other  such  folk  in  town 
or  country.  She  knew  the  obligations  which 
honour  imposes  on  a  citizen  who  dines  at  home, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS      5 

and  she  never  failed  to  impress  them  upon  Monsieur 
Bergeret. 

"The  knife  has  just  been  sharpened;  Monsieur 
can  easily  cut  off  a  wing.  It's  not  difficult  to  find 
the  joint  when  the  chicken  is  tender." 

"Angelique,  be  so  good  as  to  carve  this 
chicken." 

Reluctantly  she  obeyed,  and,  slightly  crestfallen, 
she  carved  the  chicken  on  a  corner  of  the  sideboard. 
With  regard  to  human  food  she  had  ideas  which 
were  more  accurate  but  no  less  respectful  than  those 
of  Riquet. 

Meanwhile  Monsieur  Bergeret  revolved  within 
himself  the  reasons  of  the  prejudice  which  had  in- 
duced the  worthy  woman  to  believe  that  the 
right  of  wielding  the  carving-knife  belonged  to  the 
master  of  the  house  alone.  He  did  not  look 
to  find  them  in  any  gracious  and  kindly  feeling 
on  the  man's  part  that  he  should  reserve  to 
himself  a  tedious  and  unattractive  task.  It  is,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  to  be  observed  that  throughout 
the  ages  the  more  laborious  and  distasteful  house- 
hold tasks  have,  by  the  common  consent  of  all 
nations,  been  assigned  to  women.  On  the  contrary, 
he  attributed  the  tradition  cherished  by  old 
Angelique  to  the  ancient  idea  that  the  flesh  of  ani- 
mals, prepared  for  the  sustenance  of  man,  is  a 
thing  so  precious  that  the  master  alone  may  and 


6      MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

should  apportion  and  distribute  it.  And  he  called 
to  mind  the  godlike  swine-herd  Eumaeus  receiv- 
ing Ulysses  in  his  pig-sty.  He  did  not  recognize 
him,  but  honoured  him  as  a  guest  sent  by 
Zeus: 

"Eumaeus  rose  to  divide  the  portions  among  his 
guests,  for  he  had  an  equitable  mind.  He  made 
seven  portions,  whereof  he  dedicated  one  to  the 
Nymphs  and  to  Hermes,  son  of  Maia,  and 
of  the  rest  he  gave  one  portion  to  each  of  his 
table  companions;  but  to  honour  his  guest  Ulysses 
he  offered  him  the  whole  chine  of  the  pig. 
And  the  subtle  Ulysses  rejoiced  thereat  and  said 
to  Eurnaeus:  'Eumaeus,  mayst  thou  remain  for  ever 
dear  to  our  father  Zeus  for  that  thou  hast 
honoured  me,  such  as  I  am,  by  giving  me  the  best 
portion  P  ' 

Thus  Monsieur  Bergeret,  when  in  the  company  of 
his  old  servant,  daughter  of  Mother  Earth,  felt  him- 
self carried  back  to  the  days  of  antiquity. 

"Will  Monsieur  help  himself  to  a  little 
more?" 

But  he  had  not,  like  the  divine  Ulysses  and  the 
kings  of  Homer,  an  heroic  appetite;  and,  as  he  ate, 
he  read  his  paper,  which  lay  open  upon  the 
table.  This  was  another  habit  of  which  the  servant 
did  not  approve. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS      7 

"Would  you  like  a  bit  of  chicken,  Riquet?"  asked 
Monsieur  Bergeret.  "It  is  very  good." 

Riquet  made  no  reply.  He  never  asked  for 
food  as  long  as  he  lay  under  the  table.  How- 
ever good  the  dishes  might  smell  he  did  not 
claim  his  share  of  them,  and,  what  is  more, 
he  dared  not  touch  anything  that  was  offered  him. 
He  refused  to  eat  in  a  human  dining-room. 
Monsieur  Bergeret,  an  affectionate  and  kindly 
man,  would  have  liked  to  share  his  meals  with 
his  comrade.  At  first  he  had  tried  to  smuggle 
down  to  him  a  few  little  scraps.  He  had  spoken 
to  him  gently,  but  not  without  that  arrogance 
which  so  often  accompanies  beneficence.  He  had 
said: 

"Lazarus,  receive  the  crumbs  of  the  good  rich 
man,  since  for  you,  at  all  events,  I  am  the  good  rich 
man." 

But  Riquet  had  always  refused.  The  majesty  of 
the  place  over-awed  him ;  and  perhaps  in  his  former 
condition  he  had  received  a  lesson  that  taught  him 
to  respect  the  master's  food. 

One  day  Monsieur  Bergeret  had  been  more  press- 
ing than  usual.  For  a  long  while  he  had  held 
a  delicious  piece  of  meat  under  his  friend1s  nose. 
Riquet  had  averted  his  head,  and,  emerging  from 
beneath  the  table-cloth,  had  gazed  at  his  master  with 
his  beautiful,  humble  eyes,  full  of  gentleness  and 


8      MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

reproach;  eyes  that  said:  "Master,  wherefore  dost 
thou  tempt  me?" 

And  with  drooping  tail  and  crouching  legs  he 
had  dragged  himself  upon  his  belly  as  a  sign  of 
humility,  and  had  gone  dejectedly  to  the  door,  where 
he  sat  upon  his  haunches.  He  had  remained  there 
throughout  the  meal.  And  Monsieur  Bergeret  had 
marvelled  at  the  saintly  patience  of  his  little  black 
friend. 

He  knew,  then,  what  Riquet's  feelings  were, 
and  that  is  why  he  did  not  insist  on  this  occasion. 
Moreover,  he  knew  that  Riquet,  after  the  din- 
ner at  which  he  was  a  reverential  spectator,  would 
presently  go  to  the  kitchen  and  greedily  devour  his 
own  mess  under  the  kitchen  sink,  snuffling  and 
blowing,  entirely  at  his  ease.  His  mind  at  rest 
on  this  point,  he  resumed  the  thread  of  his 
thoughts. 

"The  heroes,"  he  reflected,  "used  to  make  a 
great  business  of  eating  and  drinking.  Homer  does 
not  forget  to  tell  us  that  in  the  palace  of  the  fair- 
haired  Menelaus,  Eteonteus,  the  son  of  Boe- 
thus,  was  wont  to  carve  the  meats  and  distribute 
the  portions.  A  king  was  worthy  of  praise  when, 
at  his  table,  every  man  received  his  due  portion  of 
the  roasted  ox.  Menelaus  knew  the  customs  of 
his  times.  With  the  aid  of  her  servants  the  white- 
armed  Helen  saw  to  the  cooking  ami  the, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS      9 

Eteonteus  carved  the  meats.  The  pride  of  so  noble 
a  function  still  shines  upon  the  smooth  faces 
of  our  butlers  and  maitres  d'hotel.  We  are  deep- 
rooted  in  the  past.  But  I  am  not  a  hungry  man: 
I  am  only  a  small  eater,  and  Angelique  Borniche, 
primitive  woman  that  she  is,  makes  that  too  a  griev- 
ance against  me.  She  would  think  far  more  of  me 
had  I  the  appetite  of  a  son  of  Atreus  or  a 
Bourbon." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  had  just  reached  this  stage  in 
his  reflections  when  Riquet  got  up  from  his  cushion 
and  ran  barking  to  the  door. 

This  action  was  remarkable  because  it  was  un- 
usual. Riquet  never  left  his  cushion  until  his 
master  rose  from  table.  He  had  been  barking 
for  some  moments  when  old  Angelique,  putting 
a  bewildered  face  in  at  the  door,  announced  that 
"those  young  ladies"  had  arrived. 

Monsieur  Bergeret  understood  her  to  allude 
to  his  sister  Zoe  and  his  daughter  Pauline,  whom 
he  had  not  expected  so  soon.  He  knew  that  his 
sister  Zoe  was  brusque  and  sudden  in  her  actions. 
He  rose  from  the  table;  but  Riquet,  at  the  sound 
of  footsteps,  which  were  now  heard  in  the  passage 
outside,  uttered  terrible  cries  of  warning;  his 
aboriginal  caution,  unconquered  by  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, leading  him  to  believe  that  every  stranger 
must  of  necessity  be  an  enemy.  He  scented  a 


io    MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

great  danger,  a  hideous  invasion  of  the  dining- 
room,  with  the  menace  of  ruin  and  desolation. 

Pauline  flung  her  arms  around  her  father's  neck. 
Napkin  in  hand,  he  kissed  her,  and  then  stood  back 
to  gaze  at  this  young  girl,  a  mysterious  being,  like 
all  young  girls,  whom,  after  a  year's  absence,  he 
hardly  recognized.  She  was  at  once  very  near  and 
almost  a  stranger  to  him.  She  was  his  by  virtue  of 
the  obscure  sources  of  life,  but  she  eluded  him  in  the 
dazzling  energy  of  youth. 

"How  do  you  do,  papa?" 

Her  very  voice  had  changed;  it  was  lower  and 
less  uneven. 

"How  you  have  grown,  my  child!" 

He  thought  her  pretty,  with  her  dainty  nose,  in- 
telligent eyes  and  quizzical  mouth.  But  this  feeling 
was  at  once  marred  by  the  reflection  that  there  is 
little  peace  in  this  world  of  ours,  and  that  young 
people,  seeking  for  happiness,  are  entering  upon  a 
difficult  and  uncertain  enterprise. 

He  gave  Zoe  a  hasty  kiss  upon  either  cheek. 

"You  have  not  altered,  Zoe,  my  dear.  I  did  not 
expect  you  to-day,  but  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you 
both  again." 

Riquet  could  not  understand  why  his  master 
gave  so  warm  a  welcome  to  strange  folk.  Had  he 
violently  driven  them  forth,  he  could  have  under- 
stood. However,  he  was  used  to  not  understand- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     11 

ing  all  the  ways  of  men.  Suffering  Monsieur  Ber- 
geret  to  do  as  he  would,  he  continued  to  perform 
his  duty,  barking  furiously  to  scare  the  evil- 
doers. Then,  from  the  depths  of  his  throat,  he 
drew  growls  of  hatred  and  anger;  and  a  frightful 
contraction  of  his  lips  uncovered  his  white  teeth. 
Backing  away  from  his  enemies,  he  hurled  threats 
at  them. 

"Is  that  your  dog,  papa?" 

"You  were  to  have  come  on  Saturday,"  remarked 
Monsieur  Bergeret. 

"Didn't  you  get  my  letter?"  inquired  Zoe. 

"Yes,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret. 

"No,  I  mean  the  other  one." 

"I  received  only  one." 

"One  cannot  hear  oneself  speak  here!" 

It  is  true  that  Riquet  was  barking  at  the  top  of 
his  voice. 

"Your  sideboard  is  dusty,"  remarked  Zoe,  put- 
ting her  muff  on  it.  "Doesn't  your  servant  ever  do 
any  dusting?" 

Riquet  could  not  bear  any  one  to  lay  hold  of  the 
sideboard  like  that.  Either  he  had  conceived  a  spe- 
cial aversion  for  Mademoiselle  Zoe  or  he  judged 
her  the  more  important  of  the  two,  for  it  was  to 
her  that  he  addressed  his  loudest  barks  and  growls. 
When  he  saw  her  place  a  hand  upon  the  receptacle 
in  which  the  human  nutriment  was  stored  he  barked 


12    MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

so  shrilly  that  the  glasses  upon  the  table  rang  again. 
Mademoiselle  Zoe,  turning  upon  him  suddenly,  in- 
quired ironically: 

"Are  you  going  to  eat  me  up?" 

Riquet  fled  in  terror. 

"Is  your  dog  vicious,  papa?" 

"No,  he  is  intelligent;  he  isn't  vicious." 

"I  don't  think  he's  particularly  intelligent,"  said 
Zoe. 

"Yes,  he  is,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "He  does 
not  understand  all  our  ideas;  but  we  don't  un- 
derstand all  his.  No  one  can  enter  into  the  mind 
of  another." 

"You,  Lucien,  are  no  judge  of  persons,"  said 
Zoe. 

Monsieur  Bergeret  turned  to  Pauline. 

"Come,  let  me  have  a  look  at  you.  I  can  hardly 
recognise  you." 

A  bright  idea  struck  Riquet.  He  made  up  his 
mind  to  go  to  the  kitchen,  to  the  kindly  Angelique, 
and  to  warn  her,  if  possible,  of  the  disturbance  tak- 
ing place  in  the  dining-room.  She  was  his  last  hope 
for  the  restoration  of  order  and  the  expulsion  of 
the  intruders. 

"What  have  you  done  with  Father's  portrait?" 
inquired  Mademoiselle  Zoe. 

"Sit   down   and   have    something   to   eat,"    said 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     13 

Monsieur  Bergeret.     "There  is  some  chicken  and 

various  other  things." 

"Papa,  is  it  really  true  that  we  are  going  to  live 

in  Paris?" 

"Next  month,  my  child.    Are  you  glad?" 
"Yes,  but  I  should  be  just  as  happy  in  the  country 

if  I  could  have  a  garden." 

She  stopped  eating  her  chicken  and  said: 

"I   do  admire  you,   papa.     I'm  proud  of  you. 

You  are  a  great  man." 

"That  is  what  my  little  dog  Riquet  thinks  too," 

replied  Monsieur  Bergeret. 


CHAPTER  II 

NDER  the  supervision  of  Made- 
moiselle Zoe,  the  professor's  furni- 
ture was  packed  and  taken  to  the 
railway  station. 

During  the  days  of  the  removal 
Riquet  roamed  sadly  through  the  devastated  rooms. 
He  regarded  Zoe  and  Pauline  with  suspicion,  as 
their  arrival  had  been  closely  followed  by  the  com- 
plete upheaval  of  his  formerly  peaceful  home. 
The  tears  of  old  Angelique,  who  wept  all  day  long 
in  her  kitchen,  increased  his  depression.  His  most 
cherished  habits  were  set  at  naught;  the  strange, 
ill-clad,  fierce  and  insulting  men  troubled  his  repose ; 
they  even  went  so  far  as  to  enter  the  kitchen  and 
kick  away  his  plate  of  food  and  bowl  of  fresh 
water.  Chairs  were  taken  from  him  as  soon  as 
he  lay  upon  them,  and  carpets  were  abruptly  dragged 
from  beneath  his  persecuted  body,  so  that  in 
his  own  home  he  no  longer  knew  where  to  lay  his 
head. 

To  his  honour  be  it  said  that  at  first  he  had 
sought  to   resist.     When  the  water-tank  was  re- 

14 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     15 

moved  he  had  barked  furiously  at  the  enemy,  but 
no  one  heeded  the  alarm.  No  one  gave  him  any 
encouragement;  nay,  he  was,  indeed,  actually  op- 
posed. "Be  quiet,"  rapped  out  Mademoiselle  Zoe, 
and  Pauline  had  added,  "Riquet,  you  are  perfectly 
absurd  I" 

Thenceforth  he  decided  not  to  waste  his  time  in 
giving  warnings  that  fell  on  deaf  ears  or  to  labour 
unaided  for  the  common  good,  and  he  grieved 
silently  over  the  ruined  house,  and  wandered  from 
room  to  room  vainly  seeking  a  little  peace.  When 
the  pantechnicon  men  entered  the  room  in  which 
he  had  taken  refuge  he  would  prudently  hide  be- 
neath some  table  or  sideboard  which  had  not  yet 
been  taken  away.  But  this  precaution  was  more 
harmful  than  helpful  to  him,  for  presently  the  piece 
of  furniture  tottered  above  him,  rose,  and  fell  again, 
creaking  ominously  and  threatening  to  crush  him. 
With  bristling  coat  and  haggard  features  he  took 
to  his  heels  only  to  seek  another  place  of  refuge  as 
precarious  as  the  last. 

But  these  material  inconveniences,  nay,  these 
perils,  were  trifling  matters  in  comparison  with  the 
pain  that  filled  his  heart.  It  was  his  moral,  so  to 
speak,  that  was  most  affected. 

To  him  the  articles  of  furniture  were  not 
inanimate  objects  but  living  and  kindly  beings, 
favourable  genii  whose  departure  was  a  presage  of 


16     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

dire  misfortune.  Dishes  and  frying-pans,  saucepans 
and  sugar-basins,  all  the  divinities  of  the  kitchen; 
arm-chairs,  carpets,  cushions,  all  the  fetishes  of  the 
fireside,  his  Lares  and  his  household  gods,  had. 
disappeared.  He  did  not  believe  that  so  great  a 
disaster  could  ever  be  made  good,  and  his  little 
soul  grieved  over  it  to  the  very  limit  of  its  ca- 
pacity. Happily,  like  the  human  soul,  it  was  easily 
distracted  and  quick  to  forget  its  woes.  During 
the  lengthy  absences  of  the  thirsty  removers,  when 
old  Angelique's  broom  stirred  up  the  ancient  dust 
upon  the  floor,  Riquet  scented  the  smell  of  mice, 
or  watched  a  scurrying  spider,  and  his  fickle  fancy 
was  diverted  awhile;  but  he  soon  relapsed  into 
melancholy. 

On  the  day  of  departure,  seeing  that  matters 
were  growing  worse  from  hour  to  hour,  he  was 
utterly  miserable.  It  seemed  to  him  a  peculiarly 
ominous  thing  that  they  should  thrust  the  linen  into 
dismal-looking  chests.  Pauline  was  packing  her 
own  boxes  with  joyful  eagerness.  He  turned  from 
her  as  though  she  were  doing  an  evil  thing,  and 
huddled  against  the  wall.  "The  worst  has  come," 
he  thought.  "This  is  the  end  of  all  things !" 

Whether  he  believed  that  things  ceased  to  exist 
when  he  saw  them  no  longer,  or  whether  he  was 
only  anxious  to  avoid  a  painful  spectacle,  he  was 
careful  not  to  look  in  Pauline's  direction.  As  she 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     17 

went  to  and  fro  she  chanced  to  notice  Riquet's 
attitude,  and  its  melancholy  struck  her  as  comical. 
Laughing,  she  called  him:  "Here,  Riquet,  here!" 
But  he  would  neither  stir  from  his  corner  nor  turn 
his  head.  He  hadn't  at  that  moment  the  heart  to 
caress  his  young  mistress,  and  a  secret  instinct,  a 
kind  of  foreboding,  warned  him  not  to  go  too  near 
to  the  gaping  trunk.  Pauline  called  him  several 
times,  and  as  he  did  not  respond  she  went  over  to 
him  and  picked  him  up  in  her  arms. 

"How  miserable  we  are !"  she  said.  "How  much 
to  be  pitied!" 

Her  tone  was  ironical;  Riquet  did  not  under- 
stand irony.  He  lay  motionless  and  dejected 
in  her  arms,  feigning  to  see  nothing,  to  hear 
nothing. 

"Look  at  me,  Riquet!"  she  demanded.  Three 
times  she  bade  him  look  at  her,  but  in  vain.  Then, 
simulating  violent  anger,  she  threw  him  into  the 
trunk,  crying,  "In  you  go,  stupid!"  and  banged  the 
lid  on  him.  At  that  moment  her  aunt  called  her, 
and  she  went  out  of  the  room,  leaving  Riquet  in 
the  trunk. 

He  felt  exceedingly  uneasy,  for  it  never  entered 
his  head  that  Pauline  had  put  him  there  for  fun, 
and  merely  to  tease  him.  Judging  that  his  position 
was  quite  bad  enough  already,  he  endeavoured  not 
to  aggravate  it  by  thoughtless  behaviour.  For 


i8     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

some  moments,  therefore,  he  remained  motionless 
without  even  drawing  a  breath.  Then,  feeling  that 
no  fresh  disaster  threatened  him,  he  thought  he  had 
better  explore  his  gloomy  prison.  He  pawed  the 
petticoats  and  chemises  upon  which  he  had  been  so 
cruelly  precipitated,  seeking  some  outlet  by  which 
he  might  escape.  He  had  been  busy  for  two  or  three 
minutes  when  Monsieur  Bergeret,  who  was  getting 
ready  to  go  out,  called  him : 

"Riquet!  Riquet!  Here!  we're  going  to  the 
bookshop  to  say  good-bye  to  Paillot!  Here! 
Where  are  you?" 

Monsieur  Bergeret's  voice  comforted  Riquet 
greatly.  He  replied  to  it  by  a  desperate  scratching 
at  the  wicker  sides  of  the  trunk. 

"Where  is  the  dog?"  inquired  Monsieur  Ber- 
geret of  Pauline,  who  at  that  moment  returned, 
carrying  a  pile  of  linen. 

"In  my  trunk,  papa." 

Why  in  the  trunk?" 

"Because  I  put  him  there." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  went  up  to  the  trunk,  and 
remarked : 

"It  was  thus  that  the  child  Comatas,  who  played 
upon  the  flute  as  he  kept  his  master's  goats,  was 
imprisoned  in  a  chest,  where  he  was  fed  on  honey 
by  the  bees  of  the  Muses.  But  not  so  with 
you,  Riquet;  you  would  have  died  of  hunger  in 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     19 

this  trunk,  for  you  are  not  dear  to  the  immortal 
Muses." 

Having  spoken,  Monsieur  Bergeret  freed  his 
little  friend,  who  with  wagging  tail  followed  him 
as  far  as  the  hall.  Then  a  thought  appeared  to 
strike  him.  He  returned  to  Pauline's  room,  ran 
to  her  and  jumped  up  against  her  skirt,  and  only 
when  he  had  riotously  embraced  her  as  a  sign  of 
his  adoration  did  he  rejoin  his  master  on  the  stairs. 
He  would  have  felt  that  he  was  lacking  in  wisdom 
and  piety  had  he  failed  to  bestow  these  tokens  of 
affection  on  a  being  whose  power  had  plunged  him 
into  the  depths  of  a  trunk. 

Monsieur  Bergeret  thought  Paillot's  shop  a  dis- 
mal, ugly  place.  Paillot  and  his  assistant  were  busy 
"calling  over"  the  list  of  goods  supplied  to  the  Com- 
munal School.  This  task  prevented  him  from  pro- 
longing his  farewell  to  the  professor.  He  had  never 
had  very  much  to  say  for  himself  and  as  he  grew 
older  he  was  gradually  losing  the  habit  of  speech. 
He  was  weary  of  selling  books;  he  saw  that  it  was 
all  over  with  the  trade  and  was  longing  for  the  time 
to  come  when  he  could  give  up  his  business  and  re- 
tire to  his  place  in  the  country,  where  he  always 
spent  his  Sundays. 

As  was  his  wont,  Monsieur  Bergeret  made 
for  the  corner  where  the  old  books  were  kept  and 
took  down  volume  XXXVIII  of  The  World's  Ex- 


20     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

plorers.  The  book  opened  as  usual  at  pages  212 
and  213,  and  once  more  he  perused  these  uninspir- 
ing lines: 

".  .  .  towards  a  northerly  passage.  'It  was 
owing  to  this  check,'  said  he,  'that  we  were  able  to 
revisit  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  enrich  our  voyage 
by  a  discovery  which,  although  the  last,  seems  in 
many  respects  to  be  the  most  important  which  has 
yet  been  made  by  Europeans  in  the  whole  extent  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean.'  The  happy  anticipations  which 
these  words  appeared  to  announce  were,  unhappily, 
not  realized.  .  .  ." 

These  lines,  which  he  was  reading  for  the  hun- 
dredth time,  and  which  reminded  him  of  so  many 
hours  of  his  commonplace  and  laborious  existence 
which  was  embellished,  nevertheless,  by  the  fruit- 
ful labours  of  the  mind;  these  lines,  for  whose  mean- 
ing he  had  never  sought,  filled  him,  on  this  occa- 
sion, with  melancholy  and  discouragement,  as 
though  they  contained  a  symbol  of  the  emptiness 
of  all  human  hopes,  an  expression  of  the  universal 
void.  He  closed  the  book,  which  he  had  opened  so 
often  and  was  never  to  open  again,  and  dejectedly 
left  the  shop. 

In  the  Place  Saint-Exupere  he  cast  a  last  glance 
at  the  house  of  Queen  Marguerite.  The  rays  of 
the  setting  sun  gleamed  upon  its  historic  beams, 
and  in  the  violent  contrast  of  light  and  shade  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     21 

escutcheon  of  Philippe  Tricouillard  proudly  dis- 
played the  outlines  of  its  gorgeous  coat  of  arms, 
placed  there  as  an  eloquent  example  and  a  reproach 
to  the  barren  city. 

Having  re-entered  the  empty  house,  Riquet 
pawed  his  master's  legs,  looking  up  at  him  with  his 
beautiful  sorrowing  eyes,  that  said:  "You,  formerly 
so  rich  and  powerful,  have  you,  O  master,  become 
poor?  Have  you  grown  powerless?  You  suffer 
men  clad  in  filthy  rags  to  invade  your  study,  your 
bedroom  and  your  dining-room,  to  fall  upon  your 
furniture  and  drag  it  out  of  doors.  They  drag  your 
deep  arm-chair  down  the  stairs,  your  chair  and 
mine,  in  which  we  sat  to  rest  every  evening, 
and  often  in  the  morning,  side  by  side.  In 
the  clutch  of  these  ragged  men  I  heard  it  groan, 
that  chair  which  is  so  great  a  fetish  and  so  benevo- 
lent a  spirit.  And  you  never  resisted  these 
invaders.  If  you  have  lost  all  the  genii  that  used 
to  fill  your  house,  even  to  the  little  divinities,  that 
you  used  to  put  on  your  feet  every  morning 
when  you  got  out  of  bed,  those  slippers  which  I 
used  to  worry  in  my  play,  if  you  are  poor  and 
miserable,  O  my  master,  what  will  become  of 
me?" 

"Lucien,  we  have  no  time  to  lose,"  said  Zoe. 
"The  train  goes  at  eight  and  we  have  had  no  dinner. 
Let  us  go  and  dine  at  the  station." 


22     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"To-morrow  you  will  be  in  Paris,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret  to  Riquet.  "Paris  is  a  famous  and 
a  generous  city.  To  be  honest,  however,  I  must 
point  out  that  this  generosity  is  not  vouchsafed 
alike  to  all  its  inhabitants.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  confined  to  a  very  small  number  of  its 
citizens.  But  a  whole  city,  a  whole  nation  resides 
in  the  few  who  think  more  forcefully  and 
more  justly  than  the  rest.  The  others  do  not 
count.  What  we  call  the  spirit  of  a  race 
attains  consciousness  only  in  imperceptible  mi- 
norities. Minds  which  are  sufficiently  free  to 
rid  themselves  of  vulgar  terrors  and  discover 
for  themselves  the  veiled  truths  are  rare  in  any 
place  1" 


CHAPTER  III 


PON  Monsieur  Bergeret's  arrival  in 
Paris,  with  his  daughter  Pauline  and 
his  sister  Zoe,  he  had  lodged  in  a 
house  which  was  soon  to  be  pulled 
down,  and  which  he  began  to  like 
as  soon  as  he  knew  that  he  could  not  remain  in  it. 
He  was  unaware  of  the  fact  that  in  any  case  he 
would  have  left  it  at  the  same  time.  Mademoiselle 
Bergeret  had  made  up  her  mind  as  to  that.  She 
had  taken  these  rooms  only  to  give  herself  time  to 
find  better,  and  was  opposed  to  the  spending  of  any 
money  upon  the  place. 

It  was  a  house  in  the  Rue  de  Seine,  a  hundred 
years  old  at  least.  Never  beautiful,  it  had  grown 
uglier  with  age.  The  porte  cochere  opened  humbly 
on  a  damp  courtyard  between  a  shoemaker's 
shop  and  a  carrier's  office.  Monsieur  Bergeret's 
rooms  were  on  the  second  floor,  and  on  the  same 
floor  lived  a  picture-restorer  through  whose  open 
door  glimpses  could  be  caught  of  little  unframed 
canvases  set  about  an  earthenware  stove,  landscapes, 
old  portraits,  and  an  amber-skinned  woman  asleep 

23 


24     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

in  a  dark  wood  under  a  green  sky.  The  staircase 
was  fairly  well  lighted.  Cobwebs  hung  in  the  cor- 
ners, and  at  the  turns  the  wooden  stairs  were  em- 
bellished with  tiles.  Stray  lettuce-leaves,  dropped 
from  some  housewife's  string  bag,  were  to  be  found 
there  of  a  morning. 

Such  things  had  no  charm  for  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
but  he  could  not  help  feeling  sad  at  the  thought 
that  he  would  become  oblivious  of  these  things  as 
he  had  of  so  many  others  which,  though  they  were 
not  of  any  value,  had  made  up  the  course  of  his 
life. 

Every  day,  when  his  work  was  done,  he  went 
house-hunting.  He  thought  of  living  for  preference 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  where  his  father  had 
dwelt  before  him,  where  it  seemed  to  him  one 
breathed  an  atmosphere  of  quiet  life  and  peaceful 
study.  What  made  his  search  more  difficult  was 
the  state  of  the  roads,  broken  with  deep  trenches 
and  covered  with  mounds  of  earth.  There  were  also 
the  impassable  and  eternally  disfigured  quays. 

It  will,  of  course,  be  remembered  that,  in  the 
year  1899,  the  surface  of  Paris  underwent  a  complete 
upheaval,  either  because  the  new  conditions  of  life 
necessitated  the  execution  of  a  great  number  of 
municipal  undertakings,  or  because  the  approach  of 
a  huge  international  exhibition  gave  rise  on  every 
side  to  an  exaggerated  activity  and  a  sudden  ardour 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     25 

of  enterprise.  Monsieur  Bergeret  was  grieved  to 
see  the  town  upset,  for  he  did  not  sufficiently 
understand  the  necessity  of  such  a  proceeding,  but, 
as  he  was  a  wise  man,  he  endeavoured  to  console 
himself,  to  reassure  himself  by  meditation.  When 
he  passed  along  his  beautiful  Quai  Malaquais,  so 
cruelly  ravaged  by  merciless  engineers,  he  pitied  the 
uprooted  trees  and  the  banished  keepers  of  book- 
stalls, and  he  reflected,  not  without  a  certain  depth 
of  feeling: 

"I  have  lost  my  friends,  and  now  all  that  gave 
me  delight  in  this  city,  her  peace,  her  grace  and 
her  beauty,  her  old-time  elegance  and  her  noble 
historical  vistas,  is  being  violently  swept  away.  It 
is  always  right  and  fitting,  however,  that  reason 
should  prevail  over  sentiment.  We  must  not  dally 
with  vain  regrets  for  the  past,  nor  commiserate 
with  ourselves  over  the  changes  that  thrust  them- 
selves upon  us,  since  change  is  the  very  condition 
of  life.  Perhaps  these  upheavals  are  necessary;  it 
is  needful  that  this  city  should  lose  some  of  her 
traditional  beauty,  so  that  the  lives  of  the  greater 
number  of  her  inhabitants  may  become  less  painful 
and  less  hard." 

And,  in  the  company  of  idle  errand-boys  and 
indolent  police-sergeants,  Monsieur  Bergeret  would 
watch  the  navvies  digging  deep  into  the  soil  of  the 
famous  quay,  and  once  again  he  would  tell  himself: 


26 

"Here  I  see  a  vision  of  the  city  of  the  future, 
whose  noblest  buildings  are  as  yet  indicated  only  by 
deep  excavations,  which  would  suggest,  to  a  shallow 
mind,  that  the  labourers  who  are  toiling  to  rear 
the  city  which  we  shall  never  behold  are  merely 
excavating  abysmal  pits,  when  in  reality  they  may 
be  laying  the  foundations  of  a  prosperous  home, 
the  abode  of  joy  and  peace." 

Thus  did  Monsieur  Bergeret,  who  was  a  man 
of  goodwill,  look  with  a  favouring  eye  upon  the 
building  of  the  ideal  city;  but  he  was  much  less  at 
home  amid  the  building  operations  of  the  real  city, 
seeing  that  at  every  step  he  risked  falling,  through 
absence  of  mind,  into  a  pit. 

Nevertheless  he  continued  to  go  house-hunting, 
but  he  did  so  in  a  whimsical  fashion.  Old  houses 
pleased  him,  in  that  their  stones  had  for  him  a 
tongue.  The  Rue  Git-le-Cceur  had  a  particular  at- 
traction for  him,  and  whenever  he  saw  beside  the 
keystone  of  a  gateway  or  on  a  door  which  had  once 
been  flanked  by  a  wrought-iron  railing  a  notice  to 
the  effect  that  there  was  a  flat  to  let,  he  would 
mount  the  stairs,  accompanied  by  a  sordid  concierge, 
in  an  atmosphere  that  reeked  of  countless  genera- 
tions of  rats,  which  was  aggravated  from  floor  to 
floor  by  the  smell  of  cooking  from  poverty-stricken 
kitchens.  The  workshops  of  bookbinders  or  box- 
makers  enriched  it  at  times  with  the  horrible  odour 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS     27 

of  sour  glue,  and  Monsieur  Bergeret  would  depart 
filled  with  sadness  and  discouragement. 

Home  again,  he  would  tell  his  sister  and  daughter, 
at  the  dinner-table,  of  the  unfavourable  results  of 
his  inquiries;  Mademoiselle  Zoe  would  listen  calmly 
to  his  story.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  seek 
and  to  find  a  house  herself.  She  regarded  her 
brother  as  a  superior  person,  but  as  one  quite  inca- 
pable of  reasonable  ideas  concerning  the  practical 
affairs  of  life. 

"I  went  over  a  flat  to-day  on  the  Quai  Conti.  I 
don't  know  what  you  would  think  of  it.  It 
looks  out  on  a  courtyard  with  a  well,  some  ivy,  and 
a  statue  of  Flora,  moss-grown,  mutilated,  and  head- 
less, perpetually  weaving  a  garland  of  flowers.  I 
also  saw  a  small  flat  in  the  Rue  de  la  Chaise.  That 
looks  out  on  a  garden  with  a  great  lime-tree,  one 
branch  of  which,  when  the  leaves  have  grown,  would 
enter  my  study.  There  is  a  big  room  that  Pauline 
could  have ;  she  would  make  it  charming  with  a  few 
yards  of  coloured  cretonne." 

"What  about  my  room?"  demanded  Made- 
moiselle Zoe.  "You  never  think  of  my  room.  Be- 
sides  " 

She  did  not  finish  her  sentence,  as  she  took  no 
particular  notice  of  her  brother's  reports. 

"We  may  be  obliged  to  move  into  a  new  house," 
said  Monsieur  Bergeret,  for  he  was  a  sensible 


28     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

man  accustomed  to  subject  his  desires  to 
reason. 

"I'm  afraid  so,  papa,"  said  Pauline.  "But  never 
mind,  we  will  find  you  a  tree  reaching  up  to  your 
window,  I  promise  you." 

She  followed  her  father's  investigations  with  per- 
fect good  nature,  but  without  much  personal  in- 
terest, as  a  young  girl  undismayed  by  change,  who 
vaguely  feels  that  her  fate  is  not  yet  determined, 
and  lives  the  while  in  a  species  of  anticipation. 

"The  new  houses  are  better  fitted  up  than 
the  old  ones,"  continued  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "but 
I  do  not  like  them,  perhaps  because  I  am  more  con- 
scious, in  the  midst  of  a  luxury  that  one  can  measure, 
of  the  vulgarity  of  a  straitened  life.  Not  that  the 
mediocrity  of  my  fortune  distresses  me,  even  on 
your  account.  It  is  the  banal  and  commonplace  that 
I  detest.  .  .  .  But  you  will  think  me  absurd." 

"Oh,  no,  papa." 

"What  I  dislike  in  new  houses  is  the  precise 
sameness  of  their  arrangement.  The  structure  of 
the  apartment  is  only  too  visible  from  the  outside. 
For  a  long  while  dwellers  in  cities  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  live  one  above  another,  and  as  your  aunt 
won't  hear  of  a  small  house  in  the  suburbs  I  am 
quite  willing  to  put  up  with  a  third  or  fourth-story 
flat,  and  that  is  precisely  why  I  cannot  but  regret 
giving  up  the  idea  of  an  old  house.  The  irregu- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    29 

larity  of  old  houses  makes  the  piling  of  flat 
upon  flat  more  endurable.  When  I  walk  down  a 
new  street  I  find  myself  thinking  that  this  su- 
perposition of  households  in  modern  buildings  is, 
in  its  uniformity,  ridiculous.  The  small  dining- 
rooms  perched  one  above  the  other  with  the  same 
little  windows  and  the  self-same  copper  gaselier 
lighted  every  evening  at  exactly  the  same  time;  the 
same  tiny  kitchens  with  larders  looking  on  the 
yard,  the  same  extremely  dirty  maidservants;  the 
same  drawing-rooms,  with  their  pianos  one  over  the 
other.  To  my  mind,  the  precision  of  modern 
houses  reveals  the  daily  functions  of  the  creatures 
enclosed  in  them  as  plainly  as  though  the  floors 
and  ceilings  were  of  glass.  And  all  these  people 
who  dine  one  above  another,  play  the  piano  one 
above  another,  and  go  to  bed  one  above  another, 
in  a  perfectly  symmetrical  fashion — when  one 
thinks  of  it,  they  offer  a  spectacle  both  comical  and 
humiliating." 

"The  tenants  themselves  would  hardly  think  so," 
said  Mademoiselle  Zoe,  who  had  quite  decided  to 
settle  in  a  new  house. 

"It  is  true,"  said  Pauline  thoughtfully,  "it  is 
true,  it  is  comical." 

"Of  course,  here  and  there,  I  see  rooms  that  I 
like,"  continued  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "But  the  rent 
is  always  too  high.  And  that  makes  me  doubt  the 


30     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

truth  of  a  principle  laid  down  by  the  admirable 
Fourier,  which  assures  us  that  our  tastes  are  so 
diverse  that  if  only  we  lived  in  harmony  with  one 
another  hovels  would  be  as  much  in  demand  as 
palaces.  It  is  quite  true  that  we  do  not  live  in 
harmony;  or  we  should  all  possess  prehensile  tails, 
so  that  we  could  hang  suspended  from  the  trees. 
Fourier  has  expressly  said  so.  Another  man  of 
equal  merit,  the  gentle  Prince  Kropotkin,  has  as- 
sured us  more  recently  that  some  day  we  shall  live 
rent-free  in  the  mansions  on  the  great  avenues,  for 
their  owners  will  abandon  them  when  they  can 
no  longer  procure  servants  to  keep  them  up.  In 
those  days,  says  the  benevolent  prince,  they  will 
be  delighted  to  hand  them  over  to  the  worthy  women 
of  the  working-classes  who  will  not  object  to 
a  kitchen  in  the  basement.  In  the  meanwhile,  the 
question  of  a  house  is  both  arduous  and  difficult. 
Zoe,  please  come  with  me  to  see  that  suite  of  rooms 
on  the  Quai  Conti  of  which  I  told  you.  It 
is  rather  dilapidated,  having  served  for  thirty  years 
as  a  chemical  warehouse.  The  landlord  won't 
do  any  repairs  as  he  expects  to  let  the  place  as  a 
warehouse.  The  windows  are  oval  dormer-win- 
dows, but  from  them  you  see  an  ivy-covered  wall, 
a  moss-grown  well  and  a  headless  statue  of  Flora 
which  still  seems  to  smile.  Such  things  are  not 
easily  found  in  Paris." 


CHAPTER  IV 

T  is  to  let,"  said  Mademoiselle 
Zoe,  as  they  stopped  before  the 
gate.  "It  is  to  let,  but  we  will 
not  take  it.  It  is  too  big.  Be- 
sides  " 

"No,  we  will  not  take  it,  but  will  you  look  over 
it?  I  should  be  interested  to  see  it  again,"  said 
Monsieur  Bergeret  timidly. 

They  hesitated  a  moment.  It  seemed  to  them 
that  in  entering  the  deep  dark  vaulted  way  they 
were  entering  the  region  of  the  shades. 

Scouring  the  streets  in  search  of  a  flat,  they  had 
chanced  to  cross  the  narrow  Rue  des  Grands- 
Augustins,  which  has  preserved  its  old-world  as- 
pect, and  whose  greasy  pavements  are  never  dry. 
They  remembered  that  they  had  passed  six  years 
of  their  childhood  in  one  of  the  houses  in  this 
street.  Their  father,  a  professor  at  the  University, 
had  settled  there  in  1856,  after  having  led  for 
four  years  a  wandering  and  precarious  existence, 
ceaselessly  hunted  from  town  to  town  by  an  inimical 
Minister  of  Instruction.  And,  as  witnessed  the 

31 


32     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

battered  notice-board,  the  very  flat  in  which  Lucien 
and  Zoe  had  first  seen  the  light  of  day,  and  tasted 
the  savour  of  life,  was  now  to  let. 

As  they  passed  down  the  path  which  led  under 
the  massive  forefront  of  the  building,  they  experi- 
enced an  inexplicable  feeling  of  melancholy  and 
reverence.  The  damp  courtyard  was  hemmed  in 
by  walls  which  since  the  minority  of  Louis  XIV 
had  slowly  been  crumbling  in  the  rains  and  the  fogs 
rising  from  the  Seine.  On  the  right  as  they  entered 
was  a  small  building,  which  served  as  a  porter's 
lodge.  There,  on  the  window-sill,  a  magpie  hopped 
about  in  a  cage,  and  in  the  lodge,  behind  a  flowering 
plant,  a  woman  sat  sewing. 

"Is  the  second  floor  on  the  courtyard  to  let?" 

"Yes,  do  you  wish  to  see  it?" 

"Yes,  we  should  like  to  see  it." 

Key  in  hand,  the  concierge  led  the  way.  They 
followed  her  in  silence.  The  gloomy  antiquity  of 
the  house  caused  the  memories  which  the  blackened 
stones  evoked  for  the  brother  and  sister  to  recede 
into  an  unfathomable  past.  They  climbed  the 
stone  stairs  in  a  state  of  sorrowful  eagerness,  and 
when  the  concierge  opened  the  door  of  the  flat  they 
remained  motionless  upon  the  landing,  afraid  to 
enter  the  rooms  that  seemed  to  be  haunted  by  the 
host  of  their  childish  memories,  like  so  many  little 
ghosts. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    33 

"You  can  go  in;  the  flat  is  empty." 

At  first  they  could  find  nothing  of  the  past  in 
the  wide  empty  rooms,  freshly  papered.  They  were 
amazed  to  find  that  they  had  become  strangers  to 
things  which  had  formerly  been  so  familiar. 

"Here  is  the  kitchen,"  said  the  concierge,  "and 
here  are  the  dining-room  and  the  drawing-room." 

A  voice  cried  from  the  courtyard: 

"M'ame  Falempin!" 

The  concierge  looked  out  of  the  window,  apolo- 
gized, and  grumbling  to  herself  went  down  the 
stairs  with  feeble  steps,  groaning.  Then  the  brother 
and  sister  began  to  remember.  Memories  of  in- 
imitable hours,  of  the  long  days  of  childhood,  began 
to  return  to  them. 

"Here  is  the  dining-room,"  said  Zoe.  "The  side- 
board used  to  be  there,  against  the  wall." 

"The  mahogany  sideboard,  'battered  by  its  long 
wanderings,'  as  our  father  used  to  say,  when  he  and 
his  family  and  his  furniture  were  ceaselessly 
hunted  from  north  to  south  and  from  east  to  west 
by  the  Minister  of  the  2nd  of  December.  It 
remained  here  a  few  years,  however,  maimed  and 
crippled." 

"There  is  the  porcelain  stove  in  its  old  corner." 

"The  flue  is  different." 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"Yes,  Zoe.     Ours  had  a  head  of  Jupiter  Tro- 


34     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

phonius  upon  it.  In  those  far-off  days  it  was  the 
custom  of  the  stove-makers  in  the  Cour  du  Dragon 
to  decorate  porcelain  flues  with  a  head  of  Jupiter 
Trophonius." 

"Are  you  sure?" 

"Sure.  Don't  you  remember  a  crowned  head 
with  a  pointed  beard?". 

"No." 

"Oh,  well  that  is  not  surprising;  you  were  always 
indifferent  to  the  shapes  of  things.  You  don't  look 
at  anything." 

"I  am  more  observant  than  you,  my  poor  Lucien; 
it  is  you  who  never  notice  things.  The  other  day, 
when  Pauline  had  waved  her  hair,  you  didn't  notice 
it.  If  it  were  not  for  me " 

She  did  not  finish  her  sentence,  but  peered  about 
the  empty  room  with  her  green  eyes  and  sharp 
nose. 

"Over  there  in  that  corner  near  the  window, 
Mademoiselle  Verpie  used  to  sit  with  her  feet  on 
her  foot-warmer.  Saturday  was  the  sewing-woman's 
day,  and  Mademoiselle  Verpie  never  missed  a 
Saturday." 

"Mademoiselle  Verpie,"  said  Lucien  with  a  sigh: 
"how  old  would  she  be  to-day?  She  was  getting 
on  in  life  when  we  were  children.  She  used  to  tell 
a  story  about  a  box  of  matches.  I  have  always 
remembered  that  story  and  can  repeat  it  now  word 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    35 

for  word  just  as  she  used  to  tell  it.  'It  was  when 
they  were  placing  the  statues  on  the  Pont  des  Saints- 
Peres.  It  was  so  cold  that  my  fingers  were  quite 
numb.  Coming  back  from  doing  my  marketing, 
I  was  watching  the  workmen.  There  was  a  whole 
crowd  of  people  waiting  to  see  how  they  would  lift 
such  heavy  statues.  I  had  my  basket  on  my  arm. 
A  well-dressed  gentleman  said  to  me,  "Made- 
moiselle, you  are  on  fire."  Then  I  smelt  a  smell 
of  sulphur  and  saw  smoke  pouring  out  of  my  basket. 
My  threepenny  box  of  matches  had  caught  fire.' 
That  was  how  Mademoiselle  Verpie  related  the  ad- 
venture," added  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "She  often 
used  to  tell  us  of  it.  Probably  it  was  the  greatest 
adventure  of  her  life." 

"You've  forgotten  an  important  part  of  the  story, 
Lucien.  These  were  Mademoiselle  Verpie's 
exact  words:  'A  well-dressed  gentleman  said  to 
me,  "Mademoiselle,  you  are  on  fire."  I  answered 
"Go  away  and  leave  me  alone."  "Just  as  you 
like,  Mademoiselle."  Then  I  smelt  a  smell  of 
sulphur.'  " 

"You  are  quite  right,  Zoe.  I  was  mutilating  the 
text  and  omitted  an  important  passage.  By  her 
reply,  Mademoiselle  Verpie,  who  was  hump-backed, 
showed  that  she  was  a  virtuous  woman.  It  is  a 
point  that  one  should  bear  in  mind.  I  seem  to 
recollect,  too,  that  she  was  very  easily  shocked." 


36     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Our  poor  mother,"  said  Zoe,  "had  a  mania  for 
mending.  What  an  amount  of  darning  used  to  be 
done!" 

"Yes,  she  was  fond  of  her  needle.  But  what  I 
thought  so  charming  was  that  before  she  sat  down 
to  her  sewing  she  always  placed  a  pot  of  wallflowers 
or  daisies  or  a  dish  of  fruit  and  green  leaves  on  the 
table  before  her  just  where  the  light  caught  it.  She 
used  to  say  that  rosy  apples  were  as  pretty  as  roses. 
I  never  met  any  one  who  appreciated  as  she  did  the 
beauty  of  a  peach  or  a  bunch  of  grapes.  When  she 
went  to  see  the  Chardins  at  the  Louvre,  she  knew 
by  instinct  that  they  were  good  pictures,  but  she 
could  not  help  feeling  that  she  preferred  her  own 
groups.  With  what  conviction  she  would  say  to 
me:  'Look,  Lucien,  have  you  ever  seen  anything 
so  beautiful  as  this  feather  from  a  pigeon's  wing?' 
I  think  no  one  ever  loved  nature  more  simply  and 
frankly  than  she." 

"Poor  Mother,"  sighed  Zoe,  "and  in  spite  of 
that  her  taste  in  dress  was  dreadful.  One  day 
she  chose  a  blue  dress  for  me  at  the  Petit-Saint- 
Thomas.  It  was  called  electric  blue,  and  it  was 
terrible.  That  frock  was  the  burden  of  my  childish 
days." 

"You  were  never  fond  of  dress,  you." 

"You  think  so,  do  you?  Well,  you  are  mistaken. 
I  should  have  loved  to  have  pretty  dresses,  but  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    37 

elder  sister  had  to  go  short  because  little  Lucien 
needed  tunics.  It  couldn't  be  helped." 

They  passed  into  a  narrow  room,  more  like  a 
passage. 

"This  was  Father's  study,"  said  Zoe. 

"Hasn't  it  been  cut  in  two  by  a  partition?  I 
thought  it  was  much  larger  than  this." 

"No,  it  was  always  the  same  as  it  is  now.  His 
writing-desk  was  there,  and  above  it  hung  the  por- 
trait of  Monsieur  Victor  Leclerc.  Why  haven't 
you  kept  that  engraving,  Lucien?" 

"What!  do  you  mean  to  say  that  this  narrow 
room  held  his  motley  crowds  of  books  and  con- 
tained whole  nations  of  poets,  orators  and  his- 
torians? When  I  was  a  child  I  used  to  listen  to  the 
silent  eloquence  that  filled  my  ears  with  a  buzz  of 
glory.  No  doubt  the  presence  of  such  an  assembly 
pressed  back  the  walls.  I  certainly  remember  it  as 
a  spacious  room." 

"It  was  very  overcrowded.  He  would  never  let 
us  tidy  anything  in  his  study." 

"So  it  was  here  that  our  father  used  to  work, 
seated  in  his  old  red  arm-chair  with  his  cat  Zobeide 
on  a  cushion  at  his  feet.  Here  it  was  that  he  used 
to  look  at  us  with  the  same  slow  smile  that  he  never 
lost  all  through  his  illness,  even  up  to  the  very  last. 
I  saw  him  smile  gently  at  death  itself,  as  he  had 
smiled  at  life." 


38     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"You  are  mistaken  in  that,  Lucien.  Father  did 
not  know  he  was  going  to  die." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  did  not  speak  for  a  moment, 
then  he  said: 

"It  is  strange.  I  can  see  him  now,  in  memory, 
not  worn  out  and  white  with  age,  but  still  young  as 
he  was  when  I  was  quite  a  little  child.  I  can  see  his 
slight,  supple  figure  and  his  long  black  wind-tossed 
hair.  Such  mops  of  hair,  that  seemed  as  though 
whipped  up  by  a  gust  of  wind,  crowned  many  of 
the  enthusiastic  heads  of  the  men  of  1830  and  '48. 
I  know  it  was  only  a  trick  of  the  brush  that 
arranged  their  hair  like  that,  but  it  made  them  look 
as  though  they  lived  upon  the  heights  and  in  the 
storm.  Their  thoughts  were  loftier  and  more  gen- 
erous than  ours.  Our  father  believed  in  the  advent 
of  social  justice  and  universal  peace.  He  announced 
the  triumph  of  the  Republic  and  the  harmonious 
formation  of  the  United  States  of  Europe.  He 
would  be  cruelly  disappointed  were  he  to  come  back 
among  us." 

He  was  still  speaking  although  Mademoiselle 
Bergeret  was  no  longer  in  the  study.  He  followed 
her  into  the  empty  drawing-room.  There  they  both 
recalled  the  arm-chairs  and  sofa  of  green  velvet, 
which  as  children,  in  their  games,  they  used  to  turn 
into  walls  and  citadels. 

"Oh,  the  taking  of  Damiettal"  cried  Monsieur 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    39 

Bergeret.  "Do  you  remember  it,  Zoe?  Mother, 
who  allowed  nothing  to  be  wasted,  used  to  collect 
all  the  silver  paper  round  the  bars  of  chocolate,  and 
one  day  she  gave  me  a  pile  which  pleased  me  as 
much  as  if  it  had  been  a  magnificent  present.  I 
gummed  it  to  the  leaves  of  an  old  atlas  and  made 
it  into  helmets  and  cuirasses.  One  day  when  Cousin 
Paul  came  to  dinner  I  gave  him  one  of  these  sets  of 
armour,  a  Saracen's,  and  put  the  other  on  myself:  it 
was  the  armour  of  St.  Louis.  If  one  goes  into  the 
matter,  neither  Saracens  nor  Christian  knights  wore 
such  armour  in  the  thirteenth  century,  but  such 
a  consideration  did  not  trouble  us,  and  I  took 
Damietta. 

"That  recollection  reminds  me  of  the  cruellest 
humiliation  of  my  life.  As  soon  as  I  had  made 
myself  master  of  Damietta,  I  took  Cousin  Paul 
prisoner  and  tied  him  up  with  skipping-ropes;  then 
I  pushed  him  with  such  enthusiasm  that  he  fell  on 
his  nose,  uttering  piercing  shrieks  in  spite  of  his 
courage.  Mother  came  running  in  when  she  heard 
the  noise,  and  when  she  saw  Cousin  Paul  bound 
and  prostrate  on  the  floor  she  picked  him  up,  kissed 
him  and  said:  'You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  your- 
self, Lucien,  to  hit  a  child  so  much  smaller  than 
yourself.'  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  Cousin  Paul, 
who  never  grew  very  big,  was  then  very  small.  I 
did  not  say  that  it  had  happened  in  the  wars.  I 


40     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

said  nothing  at  all,  and  remained  covered  with  con- 
fusion. My  shame  was  increased  by  the  magna- 
nimity of  Cousin  Paul  who  said,  between  his  sobs, 
'I  haven't  hurt  myself.' 

"Ah  our  beautiful  drawing-room,"  sighed 
Monsieur  Bergeret.  "I  hardly  know  it  with  this 
new  paper.  How  I  loved  the  ugly  old  paper  with 
its  green  boughs!  What  a  gentle  shade,  what 
a  delicious  warmth  dwelt  in  the  folds  of  the  hideous 
claret-coloured  rep  curtains !  Spartacus  with  folded 
arms  used  to  look  at  us  indignantly  from  the  top 
of  the  clock  on  the  mantelpiece.  His  chains,  which 
I  used  idly  to  play  with,  came  off  one  day  in  my 
hand.  Our  beautiful  drawing-room!  Mother 
would  sometimes  call  us  in  there  when  she  was 
entertaining  old  friends.  We  used  to  come  here  to 
kiss  Mademoiselle  Lalouette.  She  was  over  eighty 
years  of  age ;  her  cheeks  were  covered  with  a  mossy 
growth  and  her  chin  was  bearded.  One  long  yellow 
tooth  protruded  from  her  lips.  They  were  spotted 
with  black.  What  magic  makes  the  memory  of 
that  horrible  little  old  woman  full  of  an  attractive 
charm  for  me  now?  What  force  compels  me  to 
recall  details  of  her  queer  far-away  personality? 
Mademoiselle  Lalouette  and  her  four  cats  lived 
on  an  annuity  of  fifteen  hundred  francs,  one  half 
of  which  she  spent  in  printing  pamphlets  on 
Louis  XVII.  She  always  had  about  a  dozen  of 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    41 

them  in  her  hand-bag.  The  good  lady's  mania 
was  to  prove  that  the  Dauphin  escaped  from  the 
Temple  in  a  wooden  horse.  Do  you  remember  the 
day  she  gave  us  lunch  in  her  room  in  the  Rue 
de  Verneuil,  Zoe?  There,  under  layers  of  ancient 
filth,  lay  mysterious  riches,  boxes  full  of  gold  and 
embroideries." 

"Yes,"  said  Zoe,  "she  showed  us  some  lace  that 
had  belonged  to  Marie  Antoinette." 

"Mademoiselle  Lalouette's  manners  were  ex- 
cellent," continued  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "She  spoke 
the  purest  French  and  adhered  to  the  old  pronun- 
ciation. She  used  to  say  'un  segret,  un  fit,  une  do' ; 
she  made  me  feel  as  though  I  were  living  in  the 
reign  of  Louis  XVI.  Mother  used  to  send  for  us 
also  to  speak  to  Monsieur  Mathalene  who  was  not 
so  old  as  Mademoiselle  Lalouette;  but  he  had  a 
hideous  face.  Never  did  a  gentler  soul  reveal  itself 
in  a  more  frightful  shape.  He  was  an  inhibited 
priest  whom  my  father  had  met  in  the  clubs  in  1848 
and  whom  he  esteemed  for  his  Republican  opinions. 
Poorer  than  Mademoiselle  Lalouette,  Monsieur 
Mathalene  would  go  without  food  in  order,  like  her, 
to  print  his  pamphlets;  but  his  went  to  prove  that 
the  sun  and  the  moon  move  round  the  earth  and 
are  in  reality  no  bigger  than  cheeses.  That,  by 
the  way,  was  the  opinion  of  Pierrot,  but  Monsieur 
Mathalene  arrived  at  his  conclusion  only  after  thirty 


42     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

years  of  meditation  and  calculation.  One  still  comes 
upon  one  of  his  pamphlets  occasionally  on  the  old 
bookstalls.  Monsieur  Mathalene  was  full  of  zeal 
for  the  happiness  of  mankind,  whom  he  terrified  by 
his  dreadful  ugliness.  The  only  exceptions  to  his 
universal  love  were  the  astronomers,  whom  he  sus- 
pected of  the  blackest  designs  on  himself.  He 
imagined  that  they  wanted  to  poison  him,  and  in- 
sisted on  preparing  his  own  food  as  much  out  of 
prudence  as  on  account  of  his  poverty." 

Thus  in  the  empty  rooms,  like  Ulysses  in  the 
land  of  the  Cimmerii,  did  Monsieur  Bergeret  evoke 
the  shades.  For  a  moment  he  remained  sunk  in 
thought;  then  he  said: 

"Zoe,  it  must  be  one  of  two  things;  either  in 
the  days  of  our  childhood  there  were  more  maniacs 
about  than  there  are  now,  or  our  father  befriended 
more  than  his  fair  share.  I  think  he  must  have 
liked  them.  Pity  probably  drew  him  to  them,  or 
maybe  he  found  them  less  tedious  than  other  peo- 
ple ;  anyhow,  he  had  a  great  following  of  them." 

Mademoiselle  Bergeret  shook  her  head. 

"Our  parents  used  to  receive  very  sensible  and 
deserving  people.  I  should  say  rather  that  the 
harmless  peculiarities  of  some  old  people  impressed 
you,  and  that  you  have  retained  a  vivid  memory  of 
them." 

"Zoe,  make  no  mistake;  we  were  both  brought 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    43 

up  among  people  who  did  not  think  in  a  common 
or  usual  fashion.  Mademoiselle  Lalouette,  Abbe 
Mathalene  and  Monsieur  Grille  were  wanting 
in  ordinary  common  sense,  that  is  certain.  Do  you 
remember  Monsieur  Grille?  He  was  tall  and  stout, 
with  a  red  face  and  a  close-clipped  white  beard. 
He  had  lost  both  his  sons  in  an  Alpine  accident  in 
Switzerland,  and  ever  since,  summer  and  winter 
alike,  he  had  worn  garments  made  of  bed-ticking. 
Our  father  considered  him  an  exquisite  Hellenist. 
He  had  a  delicate  feeling  for  the  poetry  of  the 
Greek  lyrics.  He  touched  with  a  light  and  sure 
hand  the  hackneyed  text  of  Theocritus.  It  was  his 
happy  mania  never  to  believe  in  the  certain  death  of 
his  two  sons,  and  while  with  crazy  confidence  he 
awaited  their  return  he  lived,  clad  in  the  raiment  of 
a  carnival  clown,  in  loving  intimacy  with  Alcaeus 
and  Sappho." 

"He  used  to  give  us  caramels,"  said  MademoU 
selle  Bergeret. 

"His  remarks  were  always  wise,  well-expressed 
and  beautiful,"  went  on  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "and 
that  used  to  frighten  us.  Logic  is  what  alarms  us 
most  in  a  madman." 

"On  Sunday  nights  the  drawing  room  was  ours," 
said  Mademoiselle  Bergeret. 

"Yes,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "It  was  there 
we  used  to  play  games  after  dinner.  We  used  to 


44     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

write  verses  and  draw  pictures,  and  mother  would 
play  forfeits  with  us.  Oh,  the  candour  and  sim- 
plicity of  those  bygone  days !  The  simple  pleasures, 
the  charm  of  the  old-world  manners !  We  used  to 
play  charades;  we  ransacked  your  wardrobes,  Zoe, 
in  search  of  things  to  dress  up  in." 

"One  day  you  pulled  the  white  curtains  off  my 
bed." 

"That  was  to  make  robes  for  the  Druids  in  the 
mistletoe  scene,  Zoe.  The  word  we  chose  was 
guimauve.  We  were  very  good  at  charades,  and 
Father  was  such  a  splendid  audience.  He  did  not 
listen  to  a  word,  but  he  smiled  at  us.  I  think  I 
should  have  been  quite  a  good  actor,  but  the  grown- 
ups never  gave  me  a  chance;  they  always  wanted 
to  do  all  the  talking." 

"Don't  labour  under  any  delusions,  Lucien;  you 
were  incapable  of  playing  your  part  in  a  charade. 
You  are  too  absent-minded.  I  am  the  first  to 
recognise  your  intellect  and  your  talents,  but  you 
never  had  the  gift  of  improvisation.  You  must  not 
try  to  go  outside  your  books  and  manu- 
scripts." 

"I  am  just  to  myself,  Zoe,  and  I  know  I  am 
not  eloquent;  but  when  Jules  Guinaut  and  Uncle 
Maurice  played  with  us  one  could  not  get  a  word 


in." 


"Jules  Guinaut  had  a  real  talent  for  comedy,' 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    45 

said  Mademoiselle  Bergeret,  "and  an  unquenchable 
spirit." 

"He  was  studying  medicine,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret.  "A  good-looking  fellow !" 

"So  people  used  to  say." 

"I  think  he  was  in  love  with  you." 

"I  don't  think  so." 

"He  paid  you  a  great  deal  of  attention." 

"That's  quite  a  different  matter." 

"Then,  quite  suddenly,  he  disappeared." 

"Yes." 

"Don't  you  know  what  became  of  him?" 

"No.     Come,  Lucien,  let  us  go." 

"Yes,  let  us  go,  Zoe ;  here  we  are  the  prey  of  the 
shades." 

And,  without  turning  their  heads,  the  brother  and 
sister  stepped  over  the  threshold  of  their  childhood's 
old  home  and  went  silently  down  the  stone  stair- 
case. When  they  found  themselves  again  in  the 
Rue  des  Grands-Augustins,  amid  the  cabs  and  drays, 
the  housewives  and  the  artisans,  the  noise  and 
movement  of  the  outer  world  bewildered  them  as 
though  they  had  just  emerged  from  a  long  period  of 
solitude. 


CHAPTER  V 

CNSIEUR  PANNETON  DE  LA 
BARGE  had  prominent  eyes  and  a 
shallow  mind.  But  his  skin  was 
so  shiny  that  you  could  not  help 
thinking  that  his  mind  must  of 
necessity  be  of  a  fatty  nature.  His  whole  being 
was  eloquent  of  arrogance,  brusqueness  and  a  pride 
that  apparently  had  no  fear  of  being  importunate. 
Monsieur  Bergeret  guessed  that  the  man  had  come 
to  ask  a  favour  of  him. 

They  had  known  one  another  in  the  country.  The 
professor,  taking  a  walk  beside  the  sluggish  river, 
had  often  noted,  on  a  green  hillside,  the  slated 
roof  of  the  chateau  inhabited  by  Monsieur  de  La 
Barge  and  his  family.  Monsieur  de  La  Barge 
himself  he  saw  less  frequently,  for  the  latter  was  on 
visiting  terms  with  the  aristocracy  of  the  country- 
side, without  being  sufficiently  grand  himself  to  re- 
ceive the  humbler  folk.  In  the  country  he  knew 
Monsieur  Bergeret  only  on  those  critical  days  when 
one  or  another  of  his  sons  was  going  in  for  some 

46 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    47 

examination;  but  now,  in  Paris,  he  wished  to  be 
friendly,  and  he  made  an  effort  to  be  so. 

"Dear  Monsieur  Bergeret,  I  must  first  of  all 
congratulate  you." 

"Please  do  not  trouble,"  replied  Monsieur  Ber- 
geret, with  a  little  gesture  of  refusal  that  Monsieur 
de  La  Barge  quite  wrongly  interpreted  as  inspired 
by  modesty. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Monsieur  Bergeret,  a  pro- 
fessorship at  the  Sorbonne  is  a  much-coveted  posi- 
tion, and  one  that  you  well  deserve." 

"How  is  your  son  Adhemar?"  inquired  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  remembering  the  name  as  that  of  a  can- 
didate for  the  bachelor's  degree  who  had  in- 
terested in  his  incompetence  the  authorities  of  civil, 
military  and  ecclesiastical  society. 

"Adhemar?  He  is  doing  well,  very  well;  a  little 
wild  perhaps,  but  what  would  you  have?  He  has 
nothing  to  do.  In  some  ways  it  might  be  better 
for  him  to  have  some  settled  occupation.  How- 
ever, he  is  very  young;  there  is  plenty  of  time;  he 
takes  after  me;  he  will  settle  down  once  he  has 
found  his  vocation." 

"Didn't  he  do  a  little  demonstrating  at  Auteuil?" 
asked  Monsieur  Bergeret  gently. 

"For  the  army,  for  the  army,"  answered 
Monsieur  de  La  Barge,  "and  I  must  confess  that 
I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  to  blame  him.  It 


48     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

can't  be  helped.  I  am  connected  with  the  army 
through  my  father-in-law,  the  general,  my  brothers- 
in-law,  and  my  cousin,  the  commandant." 

He  was  too  modest  to  mention  his  father,  the 
eldest  of  the  Panneton  brothers,  who  was  also  con- 
nected with  the  army  through  the  supply  depart- 
ment, and  who,  in  1872,  as  the  result  of  an  annoy- 
ing charge  in  the  police  courts,  was  given  a  light 
sentence,  for  having  supplied  to  the  Army  of  the 
East,  which  was  marching  through  the  snow,  shoes 
with  cardboard  soles. 

He  died  ten  years  later,  in  his  chateau  of  La 
Barge,  rich  and  honoured. 

"I  was  brought  up  to  venerate  the  army," 
continued  Monsieur  Panneton  de  La  Barge. 
"When  quite  a  child  I  worshipped  a  uniform.  It 
is  a  family  tradition.  I  do  not  attempt  to  hide  the 
fact  that  I  hold  by  the  old  style  of  things.  I  can't 
help  it,  it  is  in  my  blood.  I  am  a  Monarchist  and 
authoritarian  by  temperament.  I  am  a  Royalist. 
Now  the  army  is  all  that  is  left  us  of  the  Monarchy; 
all  that  is  left  of  a  glorious  past.  It  consoles  us 
for  the  present  and  fills  us  with  hope  for  the 
future." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  might  have  interposed  with 
some  observations  of  historical  interest;  but  he  did 
not  do  so,  and  Monsieur  de  La  Barge  continued: 

"That  is  why  I   regard  those  who   attack  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    49 

army  as  criminals,  and  those  who  would  dare  to 
interfere  with  it  as  fools." 

"When  Napoleon  wished  to  praise  one  of  the 
plays  of  Luce  de  Lancival,"  replied  the  professor, 
"he  called  it  a  headquarters  tragedy.  May  I  say 
that  your  philosophy  is  that  of  a  General  Staff? 
However,  seeing  that  we  live  under  the  rule  of 
liberty,  it  may  perhaps  be  as  well  to  conform  to 
its  customs.  When  one  lives  with  men  who  have 
the  habit  of  speech  one  must  accustom  oneself  to 
hear  anything.  Do  not  hope  that  the  right  to  dis- 
cuss any  subject  will  ever  again  be  denied  in  France. 
Consider,  too,  that  the  army  is  by  no  means  im- 
mutable; nothing  in  the  world  is  that.  Institutions 
can  exist  only  by  ceaseless  modifications.  The  army 
has  undergone  such  transformations  in  the  course 
of  its  existence  that  it  will  probably  undergo  even 
greater  changes  in  the  future,  and  it  is  conceivable 
that  in  twenty  years'  time  it  will  be  quite  another 
thing  than  what  it  is  to-day." 

"I  prefer  to  tell  you  at  once,"  replied  Monsieur 
Panneton  de  La  Barge,  "that  where  the  army  is 
concerned  I  admit  of  no  discussion.  I  repeat,  it 
must  not  be  interfered  with.  It  represents,  as  it 
were,  the  battle-axe,  and  as  such  it  must  not  be 
touched.  During  the  last  session  of  the  Conseil 
General  of  which  I  have  the  honour  to  be  president, 
the  Radical-Socialist  minority  put  forward  a  vote  in 


50     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

favour  of  two  years'  service.  I  protested  against 
so  unpatriotic  a  suggestion.  I  had  no  difficulty  in 
proving  a  two  years'  service  would  mean  the  end  of 
the  army.  You  cannot  make  an  infantryman  in  two 
years,  much  less  a  cavalryman.  Perhaps  you  will 
style  those  who  clamour  for  the  two  years'  service 
reformers.  I  call  them  wreckers.  And  it  is  the 
same  with  all  other  reforms.  They  are  machina- 
tions directed  against  the  army.  If  only  the  So- 
cialists would  say  that  their  desire  is  to  replace  the 
army  by  a  vast  national  guard,  they  would  at  least 
be  honest." 

"The  Socialists,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
"are  against  all  attempts  at  territorial  conquest;  they 
propose  to  organize  militia  solely  for  purposes  of 
home  defence.  They  do  not  hide  their  views,  they 
spread  them  broadcast.  And  possibly  their  views 
are  worth  some  examination.  You  need  not  fear 
that  their  desires  will  be  too  quickly  realized.  All 
progress  is  slow  and  uncertain,  and  is  followed, 
more  often  than  not,  by  retrograde  movements. 
The  advance  toward  a  better  order  of  things  is 
vague  and  indeterminate.  The  profound  and  in- 
numerable forces  which  chain  man  to  the  past  cause 
him  to  cherish  its  errors,  superstitions,  prejudices 
and  cruelties  as  precious  symbols  of  his  security. 
Salutary  innovation  terrifies  him.  Prudence  makes 
him  imitative,  and  he  dare  not  quit  the  tumble-down 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    51 

shelter  that  protected  his  fathers  and  which  is  about 
to  fall  in  upon  him.  Do  you  not  agree  with  me, 
Monsieur  Panneton?"  inquired  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
with  a  charming  smile. 

Monsieur  Panneton  de  La  Barge's  reply  was 
that  he  defended  the  army.  He  represented  it  as 
misunderstood,  persecuted  and  menaced,  and  in  ris- 
ing tones  he  continued: 

"This  campaign  in  favour  of  the  Traitor,  obsti- 
nate and  enthusiastic  as  it  is,  whatever  may  be  the 
intentions  of  its  leaders,  has  a  certain  visible  and 
undeniable  effect.  It  weakens  the  army  and  injures 
its  chiefs." 

"I  am  going  to  tell  you  some  very  simple  facts," 
replied  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "If  the  army  is  at- 
tacked in  the  person  of  certain  of. its  chiefs,  that 
is  not  the  fault  of  those  who  have  asked  for  jus- 
tice; it  is  the  fault  of  those  who  have  so  long  re- 
fused it.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  those  who  demanded 
an  explanation,  but  of  those  who  have  obsti- 
nately avoided  one  with  extraordinary  stupidity 
and  abominable  wickedness.  After  all,  if  crimes 
have  been  committed  the  evil  is  not  that  they  have 
been  made  known  but  that  they  have  been  com- 
mitted. They  have  concealed  themselves  in 
all  their  enormity  and  in  all  their  deformity.  They 
were  not  recognisable;  they  passed  over  the 
crowds  like  dark  clouds.  Did  you  imagine  they 


52     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

would  never  burst?  Did  you  think  the  sun  would 
never  shine  again  upon  the  classic  land  of  Justice, 
upon  the  country  that  taught  the  Law  to  Europe 
and  the  world?" 

"Don't  let  us  speak  of  the  Affair,"  replied 
Monsieur  de  La  Barge.  "I  know  nothing  of  it. 
I  wish  to  know  nothing.  I  did  not  read  a 
word  of  the  Inquiry.  Commandant  de  La  Barge, 
my  cousin,  assured  me  that  Dreyfus  was  guilty. 
That  affirmation  was  enough  for  me.  I  came, 
dear  Monsieur  Bergeret,  to  ask  your  advice  about 
my  son  Adhemar,  whose  prospects  in  life  are  now 
engaging  my  attention.  A  year  of  military  service 
is  a  long  time  for  a  young  fellow  of  good  family. 
Three  years  would  be  nothing  short  of  dis- 
aster. It  is  essential  to  find  a  means  of  exemption. 
I  had  thought  of  letting  him  take  his  degree 
in  literature,  but  I'm  afraid  it  is  too  dif- 
ficult. Adhemar  is  intelligent,  but  he  has  no  taste 
for  literature." 

"Well,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "try  the  School 
of  Higher  Commercial  Studies;  or  the  Commer- 
cial Institute,  or  the  School  of  Commerce.  I  do 
not  know  if  the  Watchmakers'  College  at  Cluses 
would  still  furnish  means  of  exemption.  It  used 
not  to  be  difficult,  I've  been  told,  to  obtain  the 
certificate." 

"But  Adhemar  cannot  very  well  make  watches," 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    53 

replied  Monsieur  de  La  Barge  with  a  certain 
modesty. 

"Then  try  the  School  of  Oriental  Languages," 
said  Monsieur  Bergeret  obligingly.  "It  was  an  ex- 
cellent institution  to  begin  with." 

"It  has  gone  down  since,"  sighed  Monsieur  de 
La  Barge. 

"It  still  has  its  good  points.  What  about  Tamil, 
for  instance?" 

"Tamil,  do  you  think?" 

"Or  Malagasy." 

"Malagasy,  perhaps." 

"There  is  also  a  certain  Polynesian  language 
which  was  spoken,  at  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury, by  only  one  old  yellow  woman.  She  died, 
leaving  behind  her  a  parrot.  A  German  scholar 
collected  a  few  words  of  the  language  from  the 
parrot,  and  from  these  he  compiled  a  dictionary. 
Perhaps  this  language  is  still  taught  at  the  School 
of  Oriental  Languages.  I  should  advise  your  son 
to  find  out." 

Upon  this  advice,  Monsieur  Panneton  de  La 
Barge  made  his  adieux  and  thoughtfully  took  his 
departure. 


CHAPTER  VI 

VENTS  followed  their  due  course. 
Monsieur  Bergeret  continued  to 
look  for  a  flat;  it  was  his  sister  who 
found  one.  Thus  the  positive  mind 
has  the  advantage  over  the  specu- 
lative mind.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Mademoi- 
selle Bergeret  made  an  excellent  choice.  She  was 
lacking  neither  in  experience  of  life  nor  in  common 
sense.  Having  been  a  governess,  she  had  lived  in 
Russia,  and  had  travelled  about  Europe.  She  had 
observed  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  different 
nations.  She  knew  the  world,  and  that  helped  her 
to  know  Paris. 

"That's  it,"  she  said  to  her  brother,  stopping 
before  a  new  house  overlooking  the  Luxembourg 
garden. 

"The  stairs  look  decent  enough,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  "but  it's  rather  a  stiff  climb." 

"Nonsense,  Lucien.  You  are  quite  young  enough 
to  go  up  five  short  flights  of  stairs  without  getting 
exhausted." 

"Do  you  really  think  so?"  said  Lucien,  flattered. 

54 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    55 

She  was  careful  to  point  out  that  the  stair-carpet 
ran  right  to  the  top  of  the  house,  and  he  smilingly 
accused  her  of  being  susceptible  to  trifling  vani- 
ties. 

"But  it  is  possible,"  he  added,  "that  J  myself 
should  feel  slightly  offended  were  the  carpet  to 
stop  short  at  the  floor  below  ours.  We  pro- 
fess to  be  wise,  but  we  still  have  our  weak  points. 
That  reminds  me  of  what  I  noticed  yesterday, 
after  lunch,  as  I  was  passing  a  church.  The 
outer  steps  were  covered  with  a  red  carpet  which 
had  been  trodden,  after  the  ceremony,  by  the  guests 
at  some  great  wedding.  A  working-class  couple 
with  their  party  were  waiting  for  the  last 
of  the  wealthy  company  to  leave  so  that  they  might 
enter  the  church.  They  were  laughing  at 
the  idea  of  climbing  the  steps  upon  this  unexpected 
splendour.  The  little  bride's  white  feet  were 
already  on  the  edge  of  the  carpet  when  the  beadle 
waved  her  away.  The  men  in  charge  of  the  trap- 
pings  of  the  wealthy  wedding  slowly  rolled  up  the 
carpet  of  honour,  and  only  when  it  formed  a  huge 
cylinder  did  they  allow  the  humble  wedding 
party  to  mount  the  bare  steps.  I  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment and  watched  the  worthy  folk,  who  seemed 
greatly  amused  by  the  incident.  Humble  folk  sur- 
render with  admirable  equanimity  to  social  in- 
equality, and  Lamennais  was  quite  right  to  say 


56     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

'that  the  whole  social  order  rests  on  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  poor.'  ' 

"Here  we  are,"  said  Mademoiselle  Bergeret. 

"I'm  out  of  breath,"  remarked  Monsieur  Ber- 
geret. 

"Because  you  would  talk,"  replied  Mademoiselle 
Bergeret.  "You  shouldn't  tell  anecdotes  while  you 
are  going  upstairs." 

"After  all,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "it  is  the 
common  destiny  of  men  of  learning  to  live  close 
under  the  roof.  Science  and  meditation  are  often 
hidden  away  in  garrets,  and  when  we  come  to  think 
of  it,  no  marble  hall  is  worth  an  attic  filled  with 
beautiful  thoughts." 

"This  room,"  replied  Mademoiselle  Bergeret,  "is 
not  a  garret.  It  is  lighted  by  a  big  window  and  is 
to  be  your  study." 

On  hearing  this,  Monsieur  Bergeret  looked  at 
the  four  walls  in  alarm,  like  a  man  on  the  brink  of 
a  precipice. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  asked  his  sister  uneasily. 

But  he  did  not  reply.  The  little  square  room, 
hung  with  light  paper,  seemed  to  him  dark  with  the 
unknown  future.  He  entered  with  a  slow  and 
fearful  step  as  though  he  were  entering  upon,  a 
hidden  destiny.  Then,  measuring  on  the  floor  the 
position  of  his  work-table,  he  said : 

"I  shall  sit  there.     It  is  a  mistake  to  be  too 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    57 

sentimental  over  the  past  and  the  future.  They  are 
nothing  but  abstract  ideas,  which  were  not  originally 
possessed  by  primitive  man;  he  acquired  them  only 
after  long  effort,  to  his  great  misfortune.  The 
thought  of  the  past  in  itself  is  sufficiently  painful. 
I  do  not  think  any  one  would  be  willing  to  begin 
life  again  if  he  had  to  go  over  precisely  the  same 
ground.  That  there  are  delightful  hours  and  ex- 
quisite moments  I  do  not  deny,  but  they  are  pearls 
and  precious  stones  sparsely  sprinkled  on  the  harsh 
and  dismal  web  of  life.  The  course  of  the  years  is, 
for  all  its  brevity,  of  tedious  slowness,  and  if  it  be 
sometimes  sweet  to  remember  it  is  because  we  are 
able  to  make  our  minds  dwell  upon  certain  mo- 
ments. And  even  then  the  sweetness  is  pale  and 
melancholy.  As  for  the  future,  we  dare  not  look  it 
in  the  face,  so  threatening  is  its  gloomy  countenance. 
And  when  you  told  me  a  moment  since,  Zoe,  that 
this  was  to  be  my  study,  I  saw  myself  in  the  future, 
and  I  could  not  bear  the  sight.  I  am  not  without 
courage,  I  think,  but  I  am  given  to  reflection,  and 
reflection  and  fearlessness  are  not  the  best  of 
friends." 

"The  most  difficult  thing  of  all,"  put  in  Zoe, 
"was  to  find  three  bedrooms." 

"It  is  certain,"  rejoined  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
"that  humanity,  in  its  youth,  did  not  conceive  of 
the  future  and  the  past  as  we  do.  Now  these  ideas 


58     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

that  devour  us  have  no  reality  outside  ourselves. 
We  know  nothing  of  life,  and  the  theory  of  its 
development  through  time  is  pure  illusion.  It  is 
by  some  infirmity  of  our  senses  that  we  do  not  see 
to-morrow  realised  as  we  see  yesterday.  We  can 
very  well  conceive  of  beings  so  organized  as  to  be 
capable  of  the  simultaneous  perception  of  phe- 
nomena which  to  us  appear  to  be  separated  from 
one  another  by  an  appreciable  interval  of  time.  We 
ourselves  do  not  perceive  light  and  sound  in  the 
order  of  time.  We  ourselves  take  in  at  a  single 
glance,  when  we  raise  our  eyes  to  the  sky,  aspects 
which  are  by  no  means  contemporaneous.  The 
beams  of  light  from  the  stars  seem  indistinguishable 
to  our  eyes,  yet  they  mingle  in  them,  in  a  fraction  of 
a  second,  centuries  and  thousands  of  centuries. 
With  instruments  other  than  those  we  now  possess 
we  might  see  ourselves  lying  dead  in  the  very  midst 
of  our  own  life.  For,  as  time  does  not  in  reality 
exist,  and  as  the  succession  of  facts  is  only  an  ap- 
pearance, all  facts  are  realized  simultaneously  and 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  future.  The  future  has 
already  been;  we  merely  discover  it.  Now,  perhaps, 
you  have  some  idea,  Zoe,  why  I  stopped  short  at  the 
door  of  the  room  where  I  am  to  live.  Time  is  a 
pure  idea,  and  space  is  no  more  real  than  time." 

"That  may  be,"  remarked  Zoe,  "but  it  is  very 
expensive   in  Paris  at  any  rate.     You  must  have 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    59 

noticed  that  while  you  were  house-hunting.  I  don't 
expect  you  care  to  see  my  room;  come,  Pauline's 
will  interest  you  more." 

"Let  us  go  and  see  them  both,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  as  he  obediently  promenaded  his  animal 
mechanism  through  the  little  square  rooms  hung 
with  flowered  paper,  pursuing  the  course  of  his 
reflections  the  while. 

"The  savages,"  he  said,  "make  no  distinction 
between  past,  present  and  future.  Languages, 
which  are  undoubtedly  the  oldest  monuments  of 
the  human  race,  permit  us  to  go  back  to  the  days 
when  our  ancestors  had  not  yet  accomplished  this 
metaphysical  operation.  Monsieur  Michel  Breal, 
who  has  just  published  an  admirable  essay  on  the 
subject,  shows  that  the  verb,  so  rich  to-day  in  its 
resources  for  marking  the  priority  of  an  action,  had 
originally  no  means  of  expressing  the  past,  and  in 
order  to  perform  this  function  forms  were  em- 
ployed which  implied  a  double  affirmation  of  the 
present." 

As  he  spoke,  he  returned  to  the  room  which  was 
to  be  his  study,  which  had  at  first  sight  seemed, 
in  its  emptiness,  to  be  filled  with  the  shadows  of  the 
ineffable  future. 

Mademoiselle  Bergeret  opened  the  window. 

"Look,  Lucien." 


60     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

And,  seeing  the  bare  tops  of  the  trees,  Monsieur 
Bergeret  smiled. 

"These  black  boughs,"  he  said,  "will  assume,  in 
the  timid  April  sunlight,  the  purple  hue  of  their 
buds;  then  they  will  break  forth  into  soft  green 
foliage.  That  will  be  delightful.  It  will,  indeed, 
be  charming.  Zoe,  you  are  full  of  wisdom  and 
kindness,  a  worthy  steward  and  a  most  endearing 
sister.  Let  me  kiss  you." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  kissed  his  sister,  repeating: 

"You  are  a  good  creature,  Zoe." 

And  Mademoiselle  Bergeret's  reply  was: 

"Our  father  and  mother  were  both  good." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  would  have  embraced  her  a 
second  time,  but  she  protested: 

"You'll  make  my  hair  untidy,  Lucien,  and  that 
I  can't  bear." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  stretched  out  his  hand  as  he 
stood  by  the  open  window. 

"Look,  Zoe,  to  the  right.  On  the  site  of  those 
ugly  buildings  used  to  be  the  Pepiniere.  There,  our 
elders  have  told  me,  was  a  maze  of  paths  bordered 
by  green  trelliswork  windows  among  the  shrubs. 
Our  father  used  to  walk  there  when  he  was  a  young 
man.  He  used  to  read  the  philosophy  of  Kant  and 
the  novels  of  George  Sand,  seated  on  a  bench  be- 
hind the  statue  of  Velleda.  A  dreaming  Velleda, 
with  hands  folded  over  her  mystic  sickle,  and  crossed 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    61 

legs,  who  was  the  object  of  much  generous  and 
youthful  adoration.  The  students  used  to  sit  at 
her  feet  discussing  love,  justice  and  liberty.  They 
did  not  enlist  in  those  days  in  the  party  of  untruth, 
injustice  and  tyranny. 

"The  Empire  destroyed  the  Pepiniere.  It  was 
an  evil  deed,  for  there  is  a  soul  even  in  inanimate 
things.  The  noble  ideas  of  many  young  men 
perished  with  the  gardens.  How  many  beautiful 
dreams  and  stupendous  hopes  have  taken  shape 
under  the  shadow  of  Maindron's  romantic  Velleda ! 
To-day  our  students  have  palaces  with  a  bust  of  the 
President  of  the  Republic  over  the  mantelpiece  in 
the  principal  room.  Who  will  restore  to  them  the 
winding  alleys  of  the  Pepiniere,  where  they  were 
wont  to  discuss  the  establishment  of  peace  and 
happiness  and  the  liberty  of  the  world?  Who  will 
give  back  to  them  the  garden  where,  amid  the 
joyous  songs  of  the  birds,  they  repeated  the 
generous  sayings  of  their  masters,  Quinet  and 
Michelet?" 

"No  doubt  they  were  enthusiastic  enough,"  said 
Mademoiselle  Bergeret,  "but  in  the  end  they  became 
doctors  and  lawyers  in  their  own  provinces.  One 
must  resign  oneself  to  the  mediocrity  of  life.  You 
know  well  enough,  it  is  very  difficult  to  live,  and  one 
must  not  expect  too  much  of  one's  fellow-creatures. 
Anyhow,  do  you  like  the  rooms?" 


62     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Yes,  and  I'm  sure  Pauline  will  be  delighted. 
She  has  a  charming  room." 

"She  has,  but  young  girls  are  never  delighted 
with  anything." 

"Pauline  is  not  unhappy  with  us." 

"No,  indeed.  She  is  very  happy,  but  she  does 
not  realize  it." 

"I  am  going  to  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques,"  announced 
Monsieur  Bergeret,  "to  ask  Roupart  to  put  up  some 
shelves  in  my  study." 


CHAPTER  VII 

ONSIEUR  BERGERET  had  a  great 
liking  and  esteem  for  craftsmen.  As 
he  did  not  indulge  in  any  elaborate 
appointments,  he  rarely  employed 

workmen,  but,  when  he  did  employ 
\ 

one,  he  tried  to  enter  into  conversation  with  him, 
being  sure  of  hearing  something  worth  listening  to. 

So  he  extended  a  gracious  welcome  to  Roupart, 
the  carpenter,  who  came  one  morning  to  put  up 
some  bookshelves  in  his  study. 

Riquet,  as  was  his  custom,  lay  in  the  depths  of 
his  master's  arm-chair,  peacefully  slumbering.  But 
the  immemorial  recollection  of  the  perils  which 
surrounded  his  wild  forbears  in  the  forests  makes 
the  domestic  dog  sleep  lightly.  It  should  further 
be  said  that  this  hereditary  readiness  to  awaken 
promptly  was  fostered  in  Riquet  by  the  sense  of 
duty.  Riquet  regarded  himself  as  a  watch-dog 
Firmly  convinced  that  his  mission  in  life  was  to 
guard  the  house,  he  was  proud  and  happy  in  his 
vocation. 

Unfortunately,  however,  he  thought  of  all 

63 


64    MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

houses  as  being  what  they  are  in  the  country  or  the 
fables  of  La  Fontaine,  standing  betwixt  courtyard 
and  garden,  of  which  a  dog  could  make  the  circuit, 
sniffing  a  soil  redolent  of  the  odours  of  cattle  and 
manure.  He  had  formed  no  idea  of  the  plan  of  the 
flat  occupied  by  his  master  on  the  fifth  story  of  a 
great  block  of  buildings.  So,  unacquainted  with  the 
limits  of  his  domain,  he  was  not  quite  clear  as  to 
what  he  had  to  guard.  And  he  was  a  ferocious 
guardian.  Supposing  that  the  appearance  of  this 
stranger  clad  in  patched  blue  trousers,  smelling  of 
perspiration  and  carrying  his  load  of  planks,  was 
imperilling  the  house,  he  leaped  from  his  chair  and 
proceeded  to  bark  at  the  man,  retreating  before  him 
with  heroic  deliberation.  Monsieur  Bergeret  bade 
him  be  silent,  and  he  regretfully  obeyed,  sad  and 
surprised  to  see  his  devotion  useless  and  his  signals 
disregarded.  His  earnest  gaze,  turned  upon  his 
master,  seemed  to  say: 

"So  you  allow  this  anarchist  to  enter,  dragging 
his  infernal  machine  behind  him.  Well,  come  what 
may,  I've  done  my  duty." 

Then  he  went  back  to  his  chair  and  slept  again. 
Monsieur  Bergeret,  abandoning  the  scholiasts  of 
Virgil,  entered  into  conversation  with  the  carpenter. 
First  he  questioned  him  as  to  the  purchasing,  cutting 
and  polishing  of  different  woods  and  the  joining  of 
the  planks.  He  loved  to  obtain  fresh  information 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    65 

and  he  realized  the  excellence  of  the  vulgar  tongue. 

His  face  to  the  wall,  Roupart  answered  him  be- 
tween intervals  of  long  silence,  during  which  he  took 
measurements.  It  was  then  that  he  discussed  panel- 
ling and  the  making  of  joints. 

"A  tenon  and  mortice  joint  needs  no  glue  if  the 
work  is  properly  done." 

"Is  there  not  also  such  a  thing  as  a  dovetail 
joint?"  inquired  Monsieur  Bergeret. 

"It's  an  old-fashioned  affair;  they  don't  make  'em 
now,"  replied  the  carpenter. 

Thus  the  professor  learned  something  by  listen- 
ing to  the  artisan.  Having  made  sufficient  headway 
with  his  work,  the  carpenter  turned  to  Monsieur 
Bergeret.  His  sunken,  large-featured  face,  his 
brown  complexion,  his  hair  matted  over  his  fore- 
head, and  his  little  goatee,  grey  with  dust,  gave  him 
the  look  of  a  bronze  figure.  His  smile,  which  was 
gentle,  but  came  with  difficulty,  showed  his  white 
teeth  and  gave  him  a  youthful  look. 

"I  know  you,  Monsieur  Bergeret." 

"Do  you  really?" 

"Oh  yes,  I  know  you.  That  was  something  a 
bit  out  of  the  common  what  you  did,  and  no 
mistake.  You  don't  mind  my  mentioning  it,  I 
hope?" 

"Not  in  the  least." 

"Well,  then,  you  did  something  quite  out  of  the 


66     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

common.  You  cut  your  own  class,  refused  to  have 
any  truck  with  the  brass  hats  and  sky  pilots." 

"I  hate  forgers,  my  friend,"  replied  Monsieur 
Bergeret.  "Surely  that  is  permissible  in  a  philo- 
logist. I  have  made  no  secret  of  my  opinions,  but 
I  have  not  gone  out  of  my  way  to  spread  them. 
How  did  you  get  to  know  of  them?" 

"I  will  tell  you.  One  sees  all  sorts  of  people 
at  the  workshop  in  the  Rue  Saint-Jacques.  All 
sorts  and  conditions,  big  and  little.  One  day  I  was 
planing  some  wood,  and  I  heard  Pierre  say:  'That 
low-down  cur  of  a  Bergeret.'  And  Paul  asks  him, 
'Won't  somebody  smash  his  jaw  for  him?'  And 
then  I  realized  that  you  were  on  the  right  side  in 
the  Affair.  There  aren't  many  like  you  in  this  part 
of  Paris." 

"And  what  do  your  friends  say?" 

"There  aren't  many  Socialists  hereabouts,  and 
the  few  there  are  don't  agree.  Last  Saturday  at 
the  club  there  was  a  lot  of  tag-rag  and  bobtail  and 
the  whole  lot  of  us  started  quarrelling.  Old 
Flechier,  who  fought  in  1870,  a  Communard,  who 
was  deported — he's  a  man,  he  is — he  got  up  on  the 
platform  and  said:  'Citizens,  keep  your  hair  on! 
The  intellectual  bourgeois  are  no  less  bourgeois 
than  the  military  bourgeois.  Let  the  capitalists 
scratch  each  other's  eyes  out.  Fold  your  arms  and 
keep  your  eyes  on  the  anti-Semites.  At  present  they 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    67 

are  drilling  with  sham  guns  and  wooden  swords, 
but  when  the  time  comes  to  expropriate  the  capi- 
talists I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  make  a  start 
with  the  Jews.' 

"That  pretty  well  brought  the  house  down.  But, 
I  ask  you,  should  an  old  Communard,  a  good  revo- 
lutionary, talk  in  that  way?  I  am  not  educated 
like  old  Flechier,  who  has  read  Marx,  but  I  could 
see  well  enough  that  his  arguments  were  all  wrong. 
It  seems  to  me  that  Socialism,  which  stands  for 
truth,  should  also  stand  for  justice  and  kindliness, 
that  everything  just  and  kindly  must  come  from 
it  as  naturally  as  the  apple  comes  from  the  apple- 
tree.  I  take  it  that  when  we  fight  against  injus- 
tice we  are  fighting  for  ourselves,  for  the 
working-classes,  because  it's  on  us  that  all  injustice 
lies  so  heavy.  In  my  opinion,  everything  that  is 
equitable  is  a  beginning  of  Socialism.  Like  Jaures, 
I  believe  that  to  take  sides  with  the  upholders  of 
violence  and  falsehood  is  to  turn  one's  back  upon 
the  social  revolution.  I  know  nothing  of  Jews 
or  Christians.  I  recognize  only  men — and  there 
again  the  only  distinction  I  make  is  between  the 
just  and  the  unjust.  Jews  or  Christians,  it  is 
difficult  for  the  rich  to  be  just;  but  when  the  laws 
are  just,  men  will  be  just  too.  Even  now  the  Col- 
lectivists  and  Anarchists  are  preparing  for  the  fu- 
ture by  fighting  against  tyranny  and  inspiring 


68     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

the  people  with  hatred  of  war  and  love  for  their 
fellow-men.  Even  now  we  can  do  something.  It'll 
keep  us  from  dying  desperate  with  the  bitterness 
of  rage  in  our  hearts.  For  sure  enough  we 
shan't  see  the  triumph  of  our  ideas,  and  when 
Collectivism  is  established  all  over  the  world  I  shall 
have  been  carried  feet  foremost  from  my  garret  a 
long  while  before.  But  there !  I'm  jawing  and  the 
time's  going." 

He  pulled  out  his  watch,  and  seeing  that  it  was 
eleven  o'clock  he  put  on  his  waistcoat,  picked  up 
his  tools,  and  ramming  his  cap  on  the  back  of  his 
head,  said,  without  turning  round: 

"It's  a  sure  thing  that  the  middle  classes  are 
rotten.  The  Dreyfus  case  showed  that  plainly 
enough." 

With  that,  he  went  off  to  his  dinner. 

Then,  with  wide-open  mouth,  bristling  hair  and 
flaming  eyes,  Riquet  rushed  at  Roupart's  depart- 
ing heels,  pursuing  them  with  frantic  barks.  It 
may  have  been  that  a  bad  dream  had  troubled  his 
light  slumber  and  caused  him  to  take  advantage  of 
the  enemy's  retreat,  or,  as  his  master  feigned  to 
believe,  that  his  anger  had  been  aroused  by  the  name 
which  had  just  been  pronounced. 

Alone  with  Riquet,  Monsieur  Bergeret  addressed 
him  gently  in  these  sorrowful  words: 

"You,  too,  poor  little  blackamoor,  so  feeble  in 


69 

spite  of  your  sharp  teeth  and  your  deep  bark,  the 
apparent  strength  of  which  renders  your  weakness 
ridiculous  and  your  cowardice  amusing — you,  too, 
worship  the  pomps  of  the  flesh.  You  bow  to  the  old 
iniquities  and  worship  injustice  out  of  respect  for 
the  social  order  that  gives  you  food  and  a  roof  over 
your  head.  You,  too,  would  uphold  an  illegal 
judgment  obtained  by  fraud  and  untruth;  you,  too, 
are  the  plaything  of  appearances  and  allow  yourself 
to  be  seduced  by  lies.  You  have  been  brought  up 
on  clumsy  falsehoods  and  your  darkened  mind  feeds 
on  the  works  of  darkness.  You  deceive  and  are 
deceived  with  delightful  thoroughness,  and  you,  too, 
have  your  racial  hatreds,  your  cruel  prejudices  and 
your  contempt  for  the  unfortunate." 

And  as  Riquet  gazed  at  his  master  with  a  look  of 
innocence  Monsieur  Bergeret  continued  still  more 
gently: 

"Yes,  I  know:  you  have  a  vague  goodness,  the 
goodness  of  a  Caliban.  You  are  a  pious  dog;  you 
have  your  theology  and  your  morality,  and  you  try 
to  do  well.  But  then  you  know  nothing.  You  keep 
watch  over  the  house,  guarding  it  even  against  its 
friends  and  those  who  would  make  it  more  beautiful. 
The  workman  whom  you  wanted  to  drive  out  of  the 
house  has,  in  his  simple  fashion,  some  admirable 
ideas.  But  you  did  not  listen  to  him. 

"Your  shaggy  ears  are  turned  not  to  him  whose 


70    MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

words  are  wisest  but  to  him  who  makes  the  most 
noise ;  and  the  natural  fear  which  in  the  days  of  the 
cave-dwellers  was  the  wise  counsellor  of  your  an- 
cestors and  of  mine — the  fear  that  created  the  gods 
and  crime — makes  you  turn  from  the  unfortunate 
and  deprives  you  of  pity.  And  you  do  not  even  want 
to  be  just.  The  white  face  of  the  new  goddess 
Justice  is  strange  to  you,  and  you  prostrate  your- 
self before  the  old  gods,  black  like  yourself  with  fear 
and  violence.  You  admire  brute  force,  thinking  it 
the  sovereign  power,  because  you  do  not  know  that 
it  destroys  itself.  You  do  not  know  that  all  chains 
must  fall  before  a  just  idea. 

"You  do  not  know  that  true  strength  lies  in  wis- 
dom and  that  through  wisdom  alone  the  nations  rise 
to  greatness.  You  do  not  know  that  that  which 
makes  the  glory  of  the  nations  is  not  the  senseless 
clamour  raised  in  public  places,  but  the  noble  thought 
concealed  in  some  garret,  which,  spreading  one  day 
over  the  whole  world,  will  change  its  face.  You  do 
not  know  that  those  who  have  suffered  imprison- 
ment, outrage  and  exile,  for  justice'  sake,  have 
honoured  their  country  in  the  act  You  do  not  under- 
stand." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IONSIEUR  BERGERET  was  in  his 

study  chatting  with  his  pupil,  Mon- 
sieur Goubin. 

"I  found  to-day,"  he  said,  "in  a 
friend's  library,  a  little  book  which 
is  extremely  rare  and  perhaps  unique.  Whether 
he  is  ignorant  of  its  existence,  or  thinks  it  of  little 
value,  Brunet  does  not  mention  it  in  his  Manual. 
It  is  a  little  duodecimo  entitled:  Les  characteres  et 
pourtraictures  traces  d'apres  les  modelles  anticques. 
It  was  printed  in  the  year  1538  in  the  learned  Rue 
Saint-Jacques." 

"Do  you  know  the  author?"  inquired  Monsieur 
Goubin. 

"The  author  is  a  certain  Master  Nicole  Lange- 
lier,  a  Parisian,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "His 
style  is  not  so  pleasant  as  that  of  Amyot,  but  it  is 
clear  and  full  of  meaning.  I  enjoyed  reading  his 
book,  and  copied  out  a  chapter  that  struck  me  as 
very  curious.  Would  you  care  to  hear  it?" 
"Very  much,"  replied  Monsieur  Goubin. 


72     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Monsieur  Bergeret  took  some  papers  from  the 
table  and  read  the  heading: 

"Concerning  the  Trublions  which  arose  in  the 
time  of  the  Republick." 

Monsieur  Goubin  inquired  who  these  Trublions 
were.  Monsieur  Bergeret  replied  that  he  would  no 
doubt  discover  that  from  what  followed,  and  that  it 
was  a  good  plan  to  read  a  text  before  commenting 
on  it.  And  he  read  as  follows : 

"In  those  days  there  appeared  in  the  city  folk 
that  uttered  loud  cries  and  were  named  Trublions, 
inasmuch  as  they  served  a  chief  named  Trublion, 
who  was  of  high  lineage  but  small  understanding 
and  full  of  the  arrogance  of  youth.  And  the 
Trublions  also  had  another  chief  named  Tintin- 
nabule  who  made  excellent  speeches  and  marvellous 
songs  and  had  been  cast  forth  from  the  republick 
by  the  law  and  usage  of  ostracism.  In  truth  the 
said  Tintinnabule  was  adverse  to  Trublion;  when 
the  one  pulled  up  stream  the  other  pulled  down. 
But  the  Trublions  cared  nothing  for  that,  being  so 
crazy  that  they  did  not  know  whither  they  were 
steering. 

"At  that  time  there  lived  in  the  mountains  a 
villager  named  Robin  Honeyman,  who  had  already 
a  hoary  head,  like  a  shock  of  hay  or  straw;  a  person 
full  of  guile  and  subtlety,  and  very  expert  in  the  art 
of  feigning,  who  believed  that  he  could  govern  the 
State  by  means  of  these  Trublions,  and  he  flattered 
them  to  draw  them  about  him,  whistling  to  them  as 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    73 

sweetly  as  a  flute,  after  the  guise  of  the  fowler 
piping  to  little  birds.  And  the  good  Tintmnabule 
fell  into  great  amazement  and  affliction  by  reason 
of  this  piping  and  had  a  great  fear  lest  Robin 
Honeyman  should  entice  his  goslings. 

"Under  Trublion,  Tintinnabule  and  Robin 
Honeyman  there  held  command  over  the  Trublion 
troops : 

"Four  palmers  of  exceeding  sourness. 

"Twenty-one  baptized  Jews. 

"Twenty-five  worthy  begging  friars. 

"Eight  makers  of  almanacks. 

"Forty  demagogues,  misoxenes,  xenophobes, 
xenoctones  and  xenophages;  and  six  bushels  of 
noblemen  professing  devotion  to  the  beauteous  lady 
of  Bourdes  in  Navarre. 

"In  this  fashion  did  sundry  and  contrary  chiefs 
govern  the  Trublions.  They  were  a  right  un- 
mannerly race,  and  even  as  the  Harpies,  as  Virgil 
reports,  sat  upon  trees  and  shrieked  horribly,  and 
spoiled  all  that  lay  beneath  them,  in  like  fashion 
these  froward  Trublions  climbed  upon  the  cornices 
and  pinnacles  of  the  churches  and  houses,  thence  to 
do  despite  to  the  courteous  citizens,  to  drop  filth 
upon  them  and  to  piss  upon  them. 

"And  they  diligently  chose  an  old  colonel 
named  Gelgopole,  who  was  the  most  inept  in  war 
that  could  be  found,  an  enemy  of  justice  and  a 
disdainer  of  the  laws,  and  made  of  him  their  idol 
and  paragon,  and  went  about  the  city  crying, 
'Long  life  to  the  old  Colonel!'  And  the  little 
school-urchins  likewise  squealed  at  their  heels, 


74     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

'Long  life  to  the  old  Colonel!'  Then  the  aforesaid 
Trublions  gathered  together  in  many  assemblies  and 
conventicles  in  which  they  cried:  'Health  to  the 
old  Colonel'  with  such  loudness  of  voice  that  the 
elements  themselves  were  astounded  and  the  birds 
flying  above  their  heads  fell  to  earth  benumbed  and 
dead.  In  sooth  this  was  a  very  base  madness  and  a 
most  horrible  frenzy. 

"Then  the  said  Trublions  proclaimed  that  he 
who  would  faithfully  serve  the  city  and  merit  the 
civic  crown,  which  was  fashioned  of  the  leaves  of 
the  oak-tree  bound  with  a  fillet  of  wool  and  naught 
besides,  and  honourable  among  all  crowns,  should 
utter  furious  cries  and  insane  discourses,  likewise 
those  that  guided  the  plough,  and  those  that 
reaped  and  gathered  the  harvest,  and  led  their 
flocks  to  the  pasture  and  grafted  their  pear-trees  in 
this  fair  land  of  vine  and  corn,  of  green  meadows 
and  fruitful  gardens,  did  not  serve  the  State. 
Neither  did  their  fellows  that  hewed  the  stone  and 
builded  in  the  cities  and  villages  houses  with  roofs 
of  red  tiles  and  fine  slate,  nor  the  weavers,  nor  the 
glass-workers,  nor  the  stone-cutters  that  laboured 
within  the  bowels  of  Cybele.  Nor  the  wise  men 
who  laboured  in  their  closed  studies  and  spacious 
libraries  knowing  many  wondrous  secrets  of  Nature : 
nor  the  mothers  giving  milk  unto  their  babes,  nor 
the  good  old  wives  spinning  with  their  distaffs  in  the 
chimney-corner,  telling  tales  to  the  little  children. 
But,  said  they,  the  Trublions  served  the  State  by 
braying  like  asses  at  a  fair.  And  be  it  said  for 
justice'  sake  that  in  so  doing  they  thought  to  do 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    75 

well,  for  they  had  naught  but  the  clouds  of  their 
brains  and  the  breath  of  their  mouths  for  their  own, 
and  they  expended  their  breath  with  great  force  for 
the  public  weal  and  common  profit. 

"And  they  cried  not  only  'Long  life  to  the 
old  Colonel!'  but  they  also  cried  without  respite 
that  they  loved  the  State.  In  which  they 
grievously  offended  the  other  citizens,  for  thus 
they  gave  men  to  understand  that  those  folk 
who  shouted  not  did  not  love  their  mother  the 
State  nor  the  fair  land  of  their  birth,  which  was 
a  manifest  imposture  and  an  injury  not  to  be 
suffered,  for  men  drink  with  their  mother's  milk 
this  natural  love  and  it  is  sweet  to  breathe  one's 
natal  air. 

"Now  there  were  living  at  this  time  in  the 
city  and  country  many  wise  and  prudent  men, 
who  loved  their  city  and  republick  with  a  dearer 
and  purer  love  than  ever  the  Trublions  bare 
them. 

"For  the  said  wise  men  desired  that  their  city 
should  remain  wise  and  virtuous  as  themselves, 
blooming  with  graces  and  virtues,  bearing  fitly  in 
her  right  hand  the  golden  rod  of  justice,  and  that 
their  city  should  be  glad,  careful  and  free,  and 
not  (as  the  Trublions  contrary-wise  desired) 
bearing  in  her  hands  a  great  club  wherewith  to 
belabour  the  good  citizens  and  a  blessed  chaplet 
to  mutter  Aves,  and  filthily  and  miserably  sub- 
ject to  the  old  Colonel  Gelgopole  and  the  said 
Tintinnabule.  For  in  sooth  these  latter  wished 
her  subject  to  monks,  hypocrites,  bigots,  canting 


76     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

rogues  and  impostors;  lousy,  filthy,  f rocked  and 
hooded,  shaven  and  barefoot;  for  devourers  of 
crucifixes,  bleaters  of  requiems,  beggars,  defrauders 
and  cozeners  of  testaments  swarmed  in  those  days 
and  had  already  by  secret  means  acquired  in  houses 
and  woods,  fields  and  meadows  well-nigh  one  third 
part  of  the  land  of  France.  And  they  diligently 
laboured  (these  Trublions)  to  render  the  city  yet 
more  rude  and  uncomely.  For  they  conceived  a 
great  aversion  to  meditation  and  philosophy  and 
all  arguments  deduced  from  upright  feeling  and 
shrewd  reasoning,  and  all  subtle  thoughts,  and  con- 
demned everything  save  force,  only  esteeming  this 
latter  because  it  was  wholly  brutish.  Thus  did  the 
Trublions  love  their  State  and  the  country  of  their 
birth." 

As  he  read  this  old  French  text,  Monsieur 
Bergeret  was  careful  not  to  sound  all  the  letters 
with  which  it  was  bristling  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Renaissance.  He  had  a  feeling  for  the  beauty  of 
his  native  language.  He  paid  no  attention  to 
orthography,  considering  it  a  negligible  thing: 
but  he  had,  on  the  other  hand,  the  greatest  respect 
for  the  old  pronunciation,  so  light  and  fluent, 
which  in  our  days,  unfortunately,  is  becoming 
heavier  and  more  clumsy.  Monsieur  Bergeret 
read  his  text  according  to  the  traditional  pronuncia- 
tion, and  in  so  doing  restored  their  youth  and 
novelty  to  the  old  words.  Their  meaning  emerged 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    77 

clear  and  limpid,  causing  Monsieur  Goubin  to 
remark : 

"What  I  like  about  that  passage  is  the  style;  it 
is  so  naive." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret. 

And  he  continued: 

"And  the  Trublions  said  that  they  would 
defend  the  colonels  and  soldiers  of  the  State  and 
republick,  which  was  mockery  and  derision,  for  the 
colonels  and  soldiers,  who  are  armed  with  guns, 
muskets,  artillery  and  other  very  terrible  engines, 
are  employed  to  defend  and  not  to  be  defended 
by  the  unarmed  citizens,  and  it  did  not  seem  possi- 
ble that  there  were  in  the  city  folk  fond  enough  to 
attack  their  own  defenders,  and  the  prudent  men 
opposed  to  the  Trublions  asked  only  that  the 
colonels  should  be  honourably  subject  to  the  august 
and  holy  laws  of  the  State  and  republick.  But  the 
said  Trublions  continued  to  shout  and  would  hear 
nothing  for  that  niggardly  nature  had  deprived  them 
of  understanding. 

"And  the  Trublions  nourished  a  great  hatred  of 
foreign  nations.  The  names  alone  of  the  said 
nations  and  peoples  made  their  eyes  stand  out  of 
their  heads  like  those  of  cray-fish,  very  horrible  to 
behold;  they  waved  their  arms  like  the  sails  of  wind- 
mills, so  that  there  was  not  among  them  a  notary's 
clerk  nor  a  butcher's  'prentice  but  wished  to  send  a 
challenge  to  a  king  or  queen  or  emperor  of  some 
great  country,  and  the  least  hatmaker  or  taverner 


78     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

made  as  though  he  were  ready  at  any  moment  to 
go  to  the  wars,  but  in  the  end  he  remained  in  his 
chamber. 

"And  as  it  is  true  that  fools,  who  are  ever 
greater  in  number  than  the  wise,  march  to  the 
sound  of  vain  cymbals,  so  people  of  little  knowl- 
edge and  understanding  (and  there  are  many 
such  among  rich  folk  as  well  as  among  the  poor) 
joined  the  company  of  the  Trublions  and  were 
Trublions  with  them.  And  there  was  a  horrible 
uproar  in  the  State,  so  that  the  wise  maiden 
Minerva,  sitting  in  her  temple,  that  she  might 
not  have  her  ear-drums  broken  by  such  bangers 
of  saucepans  and  infuriated  popinjays,  filled  her 
ears  with  the  wax  brought  her  by  her  well-beloved 
bees,  thus  giving  her  faithful  ones,  wise  men, 
philosophers  and  good  law-givers  of  the  State, 
to  understand  that  it  were  waste  of  time  to  enter 
into  wise  dispute  and  learned  argument  with  these 
trublioning  and  tintinnabulating  Trublions.  And 
some  persons  in  the  realm,  and  not  the  least 
important,  being  astounded  by  this  hurly-burly, 
perceived  that  these  crazy  loons  were  on  the  point 
of  over-throwing  the  republick  and  over-turning  the 
noble  and  glorious  State,  which  would  have  been 
a  most  lamentable  happening.  But  a  day  came 
when  the  Trublions  burst  asunder,  for  they  were 
full  of  wind." 

His  reading  finished,  Monsieur  Bergeret  re- 
placed the  pamphlet  upon  the  table. 

"These    old    books,"    he    said,     "amuse    and 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    79 

divert  our  minds,  they  make  us  forget  the  present 
day." 

"That  is  true,"  replied  Monsieur  Goubin. 

But  he  smiled ;  a  thing  he  seldom  did. 


CHAPTER  IX 

URING  the  holidays,  Monsieur 
Mazure,  a  keeper  of  departmental 
archives,  came  for  a  few  days  to 
Paris  to  canvass  the  offices  of  the 
Ministry  for  the  Cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour,  to  make  certain  historical  researches 
among  the  National  Archives,  and  to  see  the 
Moulin-Rouge.  Before  entering  upon  his  labours, 
on  the  day  after  his  arrival,  he  called,  about  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  upon  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
who  welcomed  him  benevolently.  As  the  heat  of 
the  day  was  overwhelming  to  those  who  were 
detained  in  the  city,  under  the  scorching  roofs  and 
in  the  streets  filled  with  acrid  dust,  a  bright  idea 
occurred  to  Monsieur  Bergeret.  He  took  Monsieur 
Mazure  to  the  Bois,  to  a  cabaret,  where  tables  were 
set  out  under  the  trees,  by  the  brink  of  a  slumbering 
sheet  of  water. 

There,  in  the  cool  shade  and  the  peace  of  the 
foliage,  they  enjoyed  an  excellent  dinner,  and 
exchanged  views  upon  familiar  topics,  discoursing 
in  turn  upon  learning  and  the  divers  fashions  of 

80 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    81 

loving.  Then,  without  preconcerted  design,  they 
yielded  to  an  inevitable  impulse  and  spoke  of  the 
Affair. 

Monsieur  Mazure  was  greatly  perturbed  by  the 
Affair.  Being  both  by  persuasion  and  temperament 
a  Jacobin  and  a  patriot,  after  the  manner  of  Barere 
and  Saint-Just,  he  had  joined  the  Nationalist  hosts 
of  his  own  department,  and  in  company  with  Royal- 
ists and  clerics,  his  betes  noires,  he  had,  in  the 
superior  interest  of  his  country,  uplifted  his  voice  for 
the  unity  and  indivisibility  of  the  Republic.  He 
had  even  become  a  member  of  the  league  of  which 
Monsieur  Panneton  de  La  Barge  was  the  president, 
and  as  this  league  had  voted  an  address  to  the  King 
it  was  slowly  dawning  upon  him  that  it  was  anti- 
republican,  and  he  no  longer  felt  easy  in  respect  of 
its  principles.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  being  accus- 
tomed to  dealing  with  documents,  and  quite  capable 
of  bringing  his  intelligence  to  bear  upon  a  critical 
inquiry  of  a  fairly  simple  character,  he  experienced 
some  difficulty  in  upholding  a  system  that  displayed 
an  audacity  hitherto  unexampled  in  the  fabrication 
and  falsification  of  documents  intended  to  ruin  an 
innocent  man.  He  felt  that  he  was  surrounded  by 
imposture,  and  yet  he  would  not  admit  the  fact  that 
he  had  made  a  mistake,  such  an  admission  being 
possible  only  to  minds  of  unusual  quality. 

He  protested,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  was  right, 


82     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

and  it  is  only  fair  to  admit  that  he  was  kept  in 
ignorance,  constrained,  crushed  and  compressed  by 
the  compact  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens.  The  knowl- 
edge of  the  inquiry  and  the  discussion  of  the  docu- 
ments had  not  yet  reached  his  little  town,  comfort- 
ably situated  on  the  green  banks  of  a  sluggish  river. 
There,  obstructing  the  light,  filling  public  offices  and 
sitting  on  the  bench,  was  that  host  of  politicians  and 
churchmen,  whom  Monsieur  Meline  had  formerly 
sheltered  beneath  the  skirts  of  his  provincial  frock- 
coat,  waxing  prosperous  in  acquiescent  ignorance  of 
the  truth.  This  elect  society,  which  enlisted  crime 
in  the  interests  of  patriotism  and  religion,  made  it 
respectable  for  all,  even  for  the  Radical-Socialist 
chemist  Mandar. 

The  department  was  all  the  more  safely  protected 
against  any  revelation  of  the  most  notorious  facts  in 
that  it  was  administered  by  an  Israelitish  prefect. 

Monsieur  Worms-Clavelin  held  himself  bound, 
by  the  very  fact  that  he  was  a  Jew,  to  serve  the  in- 
terests of  the  anti-Semites  of  his  administration  with 
greater  zeal  than  a  Catholic  prefect  would  have  dis- 
played in  his  place.  With  a  prompt  and  sure  hand 
he  stifled  in  his  department  the  growing  faction  in 
favour  of  revision.  He  favoured  the  leagues  of  the 
clerical  agitators,  causing  them  to  prosper  so  won- 
derfully that  citizens  Francis  de  Pressense,  Jean 
Psichari,  Octave  Mirbeau  and  Pierre  Quillard,  who 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    83 

came  to  the  departmental  capital  to  speak  their 
minds  as  free  men,  felt  as  though  they  had  stepped 
straight  into  a  city  of  the  sixteenth  century.  They 
encountered  none  but  idolatrous  papists,  howling  for 
their  death,  who  wanted  to  massacre  them.  And 
as  Monsieur  Worms-Clavelin,  who  since  the  judg- 
ment of  1894  was  fully  convinced  that  Dreyfus  was 
innocent,  made  no  mystery  of  that  conviction  after 
dinner,  as  he  smoked  his  cigar,  the  Nationalists 
whose  cause  he  favoured  had  good  reason  to  count 
on  a  loyal  support  which  was  not  dependent  upon 
personal  feeling. 

This  firm  hold  over  the  department  whose  ar- 
chives he  kept  profoundly  impressed  Monsieur 
Mazure,  who  was  an  ardent  Jacobin  and  capable  of 
heroism,  but  who,  like  the  company  of  heroes, 
marched  only  to  the  sound  of  the  drum.  Monsieur 
Mazure  was  not  a  brute.  He  felt  that  he  owed  it 
to  others  and  to  himself  to  explain  his  attitude. 

After  the  soup,  as  they  were  waiting  for  the  trout, 
he  leaned  his  arms  on  the  table  and  remarked: 

"My  dear  Bergeret,  I  am  a  patriot  and  a  repub- 
lican; I  do  not  know  whether  Dreyfus  is  guilty  or 
innocent.  I  do  not  want  to  know;  it's  not  my  busi- 
ness. He  may  be  innocent,  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Dreyfusites  are  guilty.  They  have  been 
guilty  of  a  great  impertinence  in  substituting  their 
own  personal  opinion  for  a  decision  given  by  repub- 


84     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

lican  justice.  Besides,  they  have  stirred  up  the 
whole  country.  Trade  is  suffering." 

"There's  a  pretty  woman,"  said  Monsieur  Ber- 
geret,  "tall,  straight  and  slender  as  a  young  tree." 

"Pooh !"  said  Monsieur  Mazure.    "A  mere  doll." 

"You  speak  very  frivolously,"  returned  Monsieur 
Bergeret.  "A  doll,  when  alive,  is  a  great  force  of 
Nature." 

"I  don't  trouble  my  head  about  that  woman  or 
any  other,"  said  Monsieur  Mazure.  "Perhaps  be- 
cause my  own  wife  is  a  very  well-made  woman." 

So  he  said  and  did  his  best  to  believe.  The  truth 
was  he  had  married  the  old  servant  and  mistress  of 
his  two  predecessors.  Bourgeois  society  had  kept 
aloof  from  her  for  ten  years,  but  as  soon  as  Mon- 
sieur Mazure  joined  the  Nationalist  leagues  of  the 
department  she  found  herself  received  in  the  best 
society  of  the  town.  General  Cartier  de  Chalmot's 
wife  went  about  with  her,  and  the  wife  of  Colonel 
Despauteres  could  hardly  tear  herself  away  from 
her. 

"The  reason  why  I  attach  special  blame  to  the 
Dreyfusites,"  added  Monsieur  Mazure,  "is  that  they 
have  weakened  our  national  defence  and  lowered 
our  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  other  nations." 

The  sun  was  shedding  his  last  crimson  rays  be- 
tween the  black  tree-trunks.  Monsieur  Bergeret  felt 
that  he  must  in  honesty  reply: 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    85 

"Just  consider,  my  dear  Mazure,"  he  said,  "that 
if  the  affairs  of  an  obscure  captain  have  become  a 
matter  of  national  importance  the  fault  is  not  ours, 
but  that  of  the  ministers  who  erected  the  support 
of  an  erroneous  and  illogical  sentence  into  a  system 
of  government.  If  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals  had 
done  his  duty  and  proceeded  to  the  revision  of  the 
trial  as  soon  as  it  was  clearly  proved  to  be  neces- 
sary, no  one  would  have  said  anything.  It  was  dur- 
ing this  lamentable  evasion  of  justice  that  protests 
began  to  make  themselves  heard.  What  upset  the 
whole  country,  what  is  calculated  to  injure  us  abroad 
and  at  home,  was  that  those  in  authority  obstinately 
persisted  in  a  monstrous  piece  of  wickedness  which 
increased  day  by  day  under  the  covering  of  lies 
with  which  they  strove  to  hide  it." 

"What  else  would  you  expect?"  said  Monsieur 
Mazure.  "I  am  a  good  patriot  and  a  republican." 

"Then  since  you  are  a  republican,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  "you  must  feel  an  alien,  a  solitary,  among 
your  fellow-citizens.  There  are  few  republicans  left 
in  France  to-day.  The  Republic  herself  has  created 
none.  It's  absolute  government  that  makes  repub- 
licans. The  love  of  liberty  is  sharpened  on  the 
grinding-stone  of  royalty  or  imperialism,  but  it 
grows  blunt  in  a  country  where  people  believe  they 
are  free.  People  seldom  care  much  for  what  they 
possess.  Reality  as  a  rule  is  not  a  very  pleasant 


86     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

thing.  One  needs  wisdom  to  be  content  with  it. 
We  can  safely  say  that  to-day  Frenchmen  under  fifty 
are  not  republicans." 

"They  are  not  monarchists." 

"No,  they  are  not  monarchists  either,  for  while 
as  a  rule  men  care  little  for  what  they  have,  because 
what  they  have  is  not  usually  pleasant,  they  fear 
change  because  it  contains  the  Unknown.  It  is  the 
Unknown  that  frightens  them  most;  that  is  the 
source  and  fountain-head  of  all  fear.  You  see  that 
in  universal  suffrage,  which  would  produce  an  incal- 
culable effect  but  for  this  terror  of  the  Unknown, 
which  annihilates  it.  It  contains  a  force  which 
ought  to  perform  prodigies  of  good  or  evil,  but  the 
fear  of  the  change  contained  in  the  Unknown  gives 
it  power,  and  the  monster  bows  his  head  to  the 
yoke." 

"Would  the  gentlemen  care  for  a  peche  au  mara- 
squinf"  inquired  the  head  waiter. 

His  voice  was  gentle  and  persuasive,  and  none 
of  the  occupied  tables  escaped  his  vigilant  gaze. 
But  Monsieur  Bergeret  did  not  reply;  he  was  watch- 
ing a  lady  who  was  advancing  along  the  sandy  path, 
wearing  a  Louis  XIV  "church-lamp"  hat  of  rice- 
straw,  covered  with  roses,  and  a  white  muslin  gown, 
the  body  of  which  was  loose  and  floating,  drawn  in 
at  the  waist  by  a  pink  sash.  The  ruche  round  her 
neck  looked  like  the  collar  of  wings  enclosing  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    87 

face  of  an  angel.  Monsieur  Bergeret  recognized 
Madame  de  Gromance,  whom  he  had  more  than 
once  met,  to  his  secret  agitation,  in  the  dull  monotony 
of  provincial  streets.  He  saw  that  she  was  accom- 
panied by  a  very  smart  young  man,  whose  attitude 
was  altogether  too  correct  for  him  to  appear  any- 
thing but  bored. 

He  stopped  at  the  table  next  to  that  occupied 
by  Monsieur  Bergeret  and  his  friend,  when  Madame 
de  Gromance  happened  to  glance  round  and  see 
Monsieur  Bergeret.  An  expression  of  displeasure 
came  over  her  face,  and  she  led  her  companion  to 
the  remotest  corner  of  the  lawn,  where  they  sat 
down  under  the  shade  of  a  large  tree.  The  sight 
of  Madame  de  Gromance  filled  Monsieur  Bergeret 
with  that  bitter-sweet  feeling  of  which  a  pleasure- 
loving  soul  is  conscious  at  the  sight  of  the  beauty 
of  living  forms. 

He  asked  the  head  waiter  whether  he  knew  the 
lady  and  gentleman. 

"I  know  them  in  a  kind  of  way,"  replied  the 
waiter.  "They  often  come  here,  but  I  don't  know 
their  names.  We  see  so  many  people !  On  Satur- 
day the  place  was  crowded.  There  were  covers  all 
over  the  grass  and  under  the  trees,  as  far  as  the 
hedge  that  encloses  the  lawn." 

"Really?"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "There  were 
covers  under  all  those  trees?" 


88     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Yes,  and  on  the  terrace  as  well,  and  in  the  kiosk." 

Busily  cracking  almonds,  Monsieur  Mazure  had 
not  noticed  the  muslin  dress.  He  inquired  which 
lady  they  were  speaking  of.  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
however,  decided  to  keep  Madame  de  Gromance's 
secret,  and  made  no  reply. 

Night  had  fallen.  Here  and  there  a  lamp  whose 
radiance  was  softened  by  a  shade  of  white  or  pink 
paper  marked  the  position  of  a  table  and  revealed 
shapes  surrounded  by  faint  haloes  of  light.  Beneath 
one  of  these  discreet  lights  the  little  white  plume 
surmounting  a  straw  hat  was  drawing  closer  and 
closer  to  the  gleaming  cranium  of  an  elderly  man. 
At  the  next  table  were  two  youthful  faces,  more 
unsubstantial  than  the  moths  that  fluttered  around 
them.  Not  in  vain  was  the  white  round  shape  of 
the  moon  ascending  the  paling  sky. 

"I  trust  you  are  satisfied,  gentlemen,"  said  the 
head  waiter. 

And  without  waiting  for  a  reply  he  directed  his 
vigilant  steps  elsewhere. 

"Look  at  those  people  dining  in  the  kindly  dark- 
ness," said  Monsieur  Bergeret  with  a  smile.  "Those 
little  white  plumes,  and  right  at  the  back,  under 
that  great  tree,  those  roses  on  a  Louis  Quatorze 
straw  hat.  They  are  eating,  drinking  and  making 
love,  and  to  this  man  they  are  nothing  but  covers! 
They  have  instincts  and  desires,  even  thoughts  per- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    89 

haps,  and  they  are  covers !  What  strength  of  mind 
and  of  language!  This  knight  of  the  appetite  is 
a  great  man." 

"We  have  had  a  very  pleasant  dinner,"  said  Mon- 
sieur Mazure,  rising.  "This  restaurant  is  fre- 
quented by  the  very  smartest  people." 

"Their  smartness,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
"was  possibly  not  of  the  highest  category.  But 
some  of  them,  certainly,  were  graceful  and  charm- 
ing enough.  I  must  confess,  however,  that  it  gives 
me  less  pleasure  to  contemplate  these  fashionable 
folk  since  a  vile  conspiracy  has  aroused  the  sickly 
fanaticism  and  thoughtless  cruelty  of  their  poor  little 
brains.  The  Affair  has  revealed  the  moral  sickness 
with  which  our  fashionable  society  is  afflicted,  just 
as  the  vaccine  of  Koch  discovers  the  lesions  of  tuber- 
culosis in  an  infected  organism.  Fortunately  the 
depths  of  the  human  ocean  lie  beneath  this  gilded 
scum.  But  when  will  my  country  be  delivered  from 
ignorance  and  hatred?" 


CHAPTER  X 

HE  Baronne  Jules,  the  widow  of  the 
great  Baron  and  the  mother  of  the 
little  Baron,  had  lost,  under  circum- 
stances which  are  familiar  to  us,  her 
lover  Raoul  Marcien.*     She  was  too 
tender-hearted  to  live  alone,  and  it  would  have  been 
a  pity  had  she  done  so.     It  came  to  pass  that  one 
summer  night,  between  the  Bois  and  the  fitoile,  she 
took  unto  herself  a  new  lover.     It  is  fitting  to  record 
this  fact,  as  it  is  not  unconnected  with  public  affairs. 
The  Baronne  Jules  de  Bonmont,  who  had  spent 
the  month  of  June  at  Montil,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Loire,  was  passing  through  Paris  on  her  way  to 
Gmunden.     Her  house  being  shut  up,   she   dined 
at  one   of  the   restaurants   in   the   Bois  with   her 
brother,  Baron  Wallstein,  Monsieur  and  Madame 
de  Gromance,  Monsieur  de  Terremondre,  and  young 
Lacrisse,   who  like   herself  were   passing  through 
Paris. 

As  they  all  moved  in  good  society  they  were  all 
Nationalists,  Baron  Wallstein  as  much  as  any  of 
*  See  The  Amethyst  Ring. 
90 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    91 

them.  An  Austrian  Jew,  expelled  from  his  country 
by  the  Viennese  anti-Semites,  he  had  settled  in 
France,  where  he  founded  a  well-known  anti-Semite 
paper  and  took  refuge  in  the  friendship  of  the 
Church  and  the  Army.  Monsieur  de  Terremondre, 
a  gentleman  of  the  lesser  nobility,  and  a  small  land- 
owner, displayed  just  enough  clerical  and  military 
enthusiasm  to  be  able  to  identify  himself  with  the 
superior  territorial  aristocracy  with  which  he  asso- 
ciated. The  Gromances  had  too  much  interest  in 
the  return  of  the  monarchy  not  to  desire  it  seriously. 
Their  financial  situation  was  very  precarious. 
Madame  de  Gromance,  who  was  pretty,  well-made, 
and  mistress  of  her  own  actions,  had  so  far  kept 
free  of  the  Affair,  but  her  husband,  who  was  no 
longer  young,  and  was  fast  approaching  the  age 
when  a  man  feels  the  need  of  comfort,  security  and 
consideration,  sighed  for  better  days  and  impatiently 
awaited  the  advent  of  the  King.  He  was  confident 
that  he  would  be  created  a  peer  of  France  by  the 
restored  Philippe.  He  based  his  right  to  a  seat  in 
the  Luxembourg  on  his  loyalty  to  the  Throne,  and 
entered  the  ranks  of  Monsieur  Meline's  republicans, 
whom  the  King,  if  he  wished  to  secure  them,  would 
have  to  reward.  Young  Lacrisse  was  secretary  to 
the  league  of  the  Royalist  youth  of  the  department 
in  which  the  Baronne  had  estates  and  the  Gromances 
creditors.  Seated  at  the  little  table  under  the  trees, 


92     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

lit  by  candles  whose  pink  shades  were  surrounded 
by  swooping  moths,  these  five  felt  that  they  were 
united  by  a  single  idea,  which  Joseph  Lacrisse  hap- 
pily expressed  by  saying: 

"France  must  be  saved." 

It  was  the  day  of  vast  projects  and  stupendous 
hopes.  They  had,'  it  is  true,  lost  President  Faure 
and  the  Minister  Meline,  who — the  former  strutting 
in  dress-coat  and  pumps,  the  latter  in  a  frock-coat 
made  by  a  village  tailor,  taking  short  steps  in  his 
heavy  hob-nailed  shoes — were  leading  the  Republic 
and  Justice  to  their  downfall.  Meline  had  left  the 
Government  and  Faure  had  left  the  world  of  the 
living  at  the  very  height  of  the  banquet.  It  must 
also  be  recognized  that  the  obsequies  of  the  latter 
had  not  produced  all  that  was  expected  of  them,  and 
that  the  coup  they  had  hoped  to  bring  off  at  the 
lying-in-state  had  proved  abortive.  It  was  also  true 
that  after  smashing  President  Loubet's  hat  the 
gentry  of  the  cornflower  and  the  white  carnation 
had  received  their  chastisement  at  the  hands  of  the 
Socialists.  It  is  true  that  a  Republican  Ministry 
was  formed,  and  obtained  a  majority.  But  in  the 
ranks  of  the  reactionary  party  were  the  clergy,  the 
magistracy,  the  army,  the  landed  gentry,  industry, 
commerce,  part  of  the  Chamber,  and  almost  the 
whole  of  the  Press.  And  as  young  Lacrisse  re- 
marked, if  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals  had  taken  it  into 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    93 

his  head  to  order  a  search  to  be  made  at  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Royalist  and  Anti-Jewish  Committees 
they  would  not  have  found  one  police  commissary 
in  the  whole  of  France  to  seize  the  compromising 
documents. 

"Anyhow,"  said  Monsieur  de  Terremondre, 
"poor  Monsieur  Faure  was  of  great  service  to  us." 

"He  loved  the  army,"  sighed  Madame  de  Bon- 
mont. 

"Assuredly,"  continued  Monsieur  de  Terremon- 
dre. "And  then  by  his  display  he  prepared  people 
for  the  monarchy.  Coming  after  him,  the  King 
will  not  seem  to  be  a  burden  upon  the  people;  his 
establishment  will  not  seem  ridiculous." 

Madame  de  Bonmont  was  anxious  to  be  assured 
that  the  King  would  enter  Paris  in  a  coach  drawn 
by  six  white  horses. 

"One  day  last  summer,"  continued  Monsieur  de 
Terremondre,  "as  I  was  walking  down  the  Rue 
Lafayette,  I  found  all  the  traffic  stopped,  with 
groups  of  police  here  and  there,  and  the  pavements 
lined  with  people.  I  asked  a  citizen  what  this 
meant,  and  he  solemnly  replied  that  they  had  been 
waiting  an  hour  for  the  President,  who  was  return- 
ing to  the  filysee  after  a  visit  to  Saint-Denis.  I 
looked  at  the  respectful  idlers  and  at  the  well-to-do 
people,  who,  with  little  parcels  in  their  hands,  were 
sitting  quiet  and  watchful  in  their  waiting  fiacres, 


94     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

deferentially  losing  their  trains.  I  was  pleased  to 
note  that  all  these  people  adapted  themselves  so 
easily  to  the  customs  of  a  monarchy,  and  that  the 
Parisians  were  quite  ready  to  welcome  their  sov- 
ereign." 

"The  city  of  Paris  is  no  longer  republican.  All 
is  going  well,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse. 

"So  much  the  better,"  remarked  Madame  de 
Bonmont. 

"Does  your  father  share  your  hopes?"  said  Mon- 
sieur de  Gromance  of  the  youthful  secretary  of  the 
Young  Royalists. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  opinion  of  Maitre 
Lacrisse,  advocate  to  the  Church  authorities,  was  not 
to  be  despised.  Maitre  Lacrisse  was  working  with 
the  Headquarters  Staff  and  preparing  for  the  Rennes 
trial.  He  had  to  go  through  the  depositions  of 
the  generals  and  get  them  to  repeat  their  evidence. 
A  Nationalist,  and  one  of  the  leading  lights  of  the 
Bar,  he  was,  however  suspected  of  having  little 
confidence  in  the  issue  of  the  Monarchist  plots.  The 
old  man  had  worked  in  former  days  for  the  Comte 
de  Chambord  and  the  Comte  de  Paris,  and  he  knew 
from  experience  that  the  Republic  would  not  easily 
be  ousted,  and  that  she  was  not  so  docile  as  she  ap- 
peared. He  had  no  faith  in  the  Senate,  and  as  he 
made  money  at  the  Palais  he  resigned  himself  will- 
ingly enough  to  living  in  France  under  a  kingless 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    95 

monarchy.  He  did  not  share  the  hopes  of  his  son 
Joseph,  but  was  too  indulgent  to  condemn  the  ardour 
of  enthusiastic  youth. 

"My  father,"  replied  Joseph  Lacrisse,  "has  his 
own  work;  I  have  mine;  but  our  efforts  are  con- 
vergent." And  leaning  towards  Madame  de  Bon- 
mont  he  whispered,  "We  shall  strike  our  blow  dur- 
ing the  Rennes  trial." 

"May  God  help  you,"  said  Madame  de  Gro- 
mance,  with  a  pious  sigh.  "It  is  time,  if  we  want 
to  save  France." 

It  was  very  hot  and  they  ate  their  ices  in  silence. 
Then  the  conversation  languidly  revived.  It  pro- 
gressed fitfully,  consisting  of  commonplace  remarks 
and  private  observations.  Madame  de  Gromance 
and  Madame  de  Bonmont  discussed  clothes. 

"There  is  a  hint  this  year  of  pleated  skirts  com- 
ing into  fashion,"  said  Madame  de  Gromance,  with 
inward  satisfaction  as  she  pictured  the  plump  pro- 
portions of  the  Baronne  in  a  full  skirt. 

"You  would  never  guess,"  said  Gromance,  "where 
I  went  to-day.  I  went  to  the  Senate.  They  were 
not  sitting,  and  Laprat-Teulet  took  me  all  over  the 
building.  I  saw  everything — the  hall,  the  gallery 
of  Busts,  the  library.  It  is  a  very  fine  building." 

What  he  did  not  tell  them  was  that,  in  the  semi- 
circle where  the  peers  were  to  sit  when  the  King 
came  to  his  own  once  more,  he  had  felt  the  velvet 


96     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

chairs  and  chosen  his  place  in  the  centre.  And  be- 
fore he  went  out  he  had  asked  Laprat-Teulet  where 
the  treasury  was.  This  visit  to  the  palace  of  the 
future  peers  had  revived  his  covetousness.  He  re- 
peated with  heartfelt  and  sincere  conviction : 

"We  must  save  France,  Monsieur  Lacrisse,  we 
must  save  France,  and  it  will  only  be  in  the  nick  of 
time." 

Lacrisse  would  see  to  that.  He  displayed  much 
confidence  and  affected  great  discretion.  According 
to  him,  everything  was  in  readiness.  They  would 
no  doubt  be  forced  to  smash  Worms-Clavelin's  head 
for  him  and  perhaps  do  the  same  for  two  or  three 
more  of  the  Dreyfusites  of  the  department  And 
he  added,  swallowing  a  piece  of  crystallized  peach: 

"It's  bound  to  come." 

Then  Baron  Wallstein  spoke.  He  spoke  at 
length;  he  made  them  realize  his  knowledge  of  af- 
fairs; he  gave  them  advice,  and  related  a  few  stories 
from  Vienna  which  greatly  amused  him.  Then,  in 
conclusion : 

"It  is  all  very  satisfactory,"  he  said,  with  his 
irrepressible  German  accent;  "it  is  all  very  satisfac- 
tory, but  you  must  admit  that  your  coup  at  President 
Faure's  funeral  was  a  failure.  If  I  speak  like  this 
it  is  because  I  am  your  friend.  One  owes  the  truth 
to  one's  friends.  Do  not  make  a  second  mistake, 
because  in  that  case  you  would  lose  your  following." 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    97 

He  looked  at  his  watch,  and  seeing  that  he  had 
barely  time  to  get  to  the  Opera  before  the  close  of 
the  performance,  lighted  a  cigar  and  rose  from  the 
table. 

The  position  of  Joseph  Lacrisse  demanded  dis- 
cretion; he  was  a  conspirator.  But  he  loved  to 
display  his  power,  to  reveal  the  consideration  in 
which  he  was  held.  He  took  from  his  pocket  a  blue 
morocco  letter-case,  which  he  carried  against  his 
breast,  and  drew  from  it  a  letter  which  he  handed 
to  Madame  de  Bonmont,  saying  with  a  smile : 

"They  can  search  my  flat  if  they  like;  I  carry 
all  my  documents  about  me." 

Madame  de  Bonmont  took  the  letter,  read  it  in  a 
whisper,  and,  flushing  with  respect  and  emotion,  re- 
turned it  with  a  hand  that  trembled  slightly  to  Joseph 
Lacrisse.  And  when  the  august  letter,  returned  to 
its  blue  morocco  case,  once  more  resumed  its  place 
next  the  secretary's  heart,  the  Baronne  gazed  at  his 
left  breast  with  a  lingering  expression  at  once  tearful 
and  filled  with  fire.  In  her  eyes  young  Lacrisse  had 
suddenly  become  resplendent  with  romantic  beauty. 

The  diners  who  still  lingered  under  the  trees  of 
the  restaurant  began  to  feel  the  dampness  and  the 
chill  of  the  night.  The  pink  lights  gleaming  on  the 
flowers  and  glass  flickered  out  one  by  one  on  the 
deserted  tables.  At  the  request  of  Madame  de 
Gromance  and  the  Baronne,  Joseph  Lacrisse  for  the 


98     MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

second  time  drew  the  royal  letter  from  his  letter-case 
and  read  in  a  low  but  distinct  voice : 

"Mv  DEAR  JOSEPH, 

"I  am  greatly  delighted  by  the  patriotic 
enthusiasm  which  our  friends  are  displaying,  thanks 
to  your  efforts.  I  have  seen  G.  D.,  who  seemed  to 
me  to  be  excellently  well  disposed  towards  us. 

"Cordially  yours, 

"PHILIPPE." 

After  reading  the  note  Lacrisse  replaced  the  sheet 
of  paper  in  his  blue  morocco  letter-case  against  his 
heart,  beneath  the  white  carnation  in  his  buttonhole. 
Monsieur  de  Gromance  murmured  a  few  words  of 
approval : 

"Very  nice  indeed.  Those  are  the  words  of  a 
real  leader,  a  true  king. 

"That  is  my  feeling,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse.  "It 
is  a  pleasure  to  execute  the  orders  of  such  a  master." 

"And  the  style  is  excellently  concise,"  continued 
Monsieur  de  Gromance.  "The  Due  d'Orleans  cer- 
tainly seems  to  have  inherited  the  secret  of  the 
Comte  de  Chambord's  epistolary  style.  Of  course 
you  know,  mesdames,  that  the  Comte  de  Chambord 
wrote  the  most  beautiful  letters  imaginable.  A  most 
able  writer.  That  is  really  the  truth.  He  excelled 
above  all  in  letter-writing.  There  is  a  trace  of  his 
grand  manner  in  the  note  which  Monsieur  Lacrisse 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS    99 

has  just  read  to  us.  And  the  Due  d'Orleans  has 
more  enthusiasm;  he  has  the  fiery  energy  of  youth. 
A  fine  figure  of  a  man,  a  fine  soldierly  figure,  and 
French  to  the  backbone !  He  has  a  fascinating  per- 
sonality. I  have  been  assured  that  in  the  working- 
class  districts  of  Paris  he  is  almost  a  popular 
favourite;  he  is  known  under  the  nickname  of 
'Gamelle.'  * 

"His  cause  has  made  great  progress  among  the 
masses,"  said  Lacrisse.  "The  little  brooches  with 
the  King's  head,  of  which  we  have  distributed 
enormous  quantities,  are  beginning  to  show  them- 
selves in  the  factories  and  workshops.  The  popu- 
lace has  more  common  sense  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed. We  are  within  reach  of  success." 

In  a  benevolent  and  authoritative  tone  Monsieur 
de  Gromance  continued: 

"With  zeal,  prudence  and  devotion  such  as  yours, 
Monsieur  Lacrisse,  any  hopes  are  permissible,  and 
I  am  sure  you  will  not  have  to  sacrifice  many  vic- 
tims in  order  to  obtain  success.  Your  opponents 
will  flock  over  to  you  of  their  own  accord." 

His  attitude  as  a  supporter  of  the  Republic,  while 
not  preventing  him  from  expressing  a  desire  for 
the  restoration  of  the  monarchy,  did  not  permit  him 
to  express  a  too  open  approval  of  the  violent  meth- 
ods which  young  Lacrisse  had  indicated  at  dessert. 
*  Gamelle  might  be  roughly  translated  by  "Matey." 


ioo  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Monsieur  de  Gromance,  who  went  to  balls  given 
at  the  Prefecture  and  was  carrying  on  a  flirtation 
with  Madame  Worms-Clavelin,  tactfully  remained 
silent  when  the  young  secretary  enlarged  upon  the 
necessity  of  doing  for  the  "sheeny"  prefect;  but  it 
was  no  breach  of  good  taste  on  his  part  to  praise 
the  Prince's  letter  as  it  deserved,  and  to  give  them 
all  to  understand  that  he  was  ready  for  any  sacrifice 
to  save  his  country. 

Monsieur  de  Terremondre  was  no  less  patriotic 
and  no  less  appreciative  of  Philippe's  epistolary 
style;  but  he  was  such  an  enthusiastic  collector  of 
curios  and  autographs  that  all  he  could  think  of  was 
how  he  could  get  Lacrisse  to  give  him  the  Prince's 
letter,  either  in  exchange  for  something  else  or  as 
a  free  gift  or  a  so-called  loan.  By  such  methods 
he  had  got  hold  of  several  letters  written  by  people 
mixed  up  in  the  Dreyfus  affair  and  had  formed  an 
interesting  collection.  Now  he  was  thinking  of 
writing  a  pamphlet  on  the  Monarchist  Plot  and 
putting  in  the  Prince's  letter  as  the  principal  feature. 
He  realized  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  obtain  and 
his  mind  was  full  of  the  matter. 

"Come  and  see  me,  Monsieur  Lacrisse,"  he  said. 
"Come  and  see  me  at  Neuilly,  where  I  shall  be  for 
the  next  few  days.  I  will  show  you  some  interesting 
documents  and  we  will  speak  again  of  that  letter." 

Madame  de  Gromance  had  listened  with  proper 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  101 

attention  to  the  King's  epistle.  She  was  a  woman 
of  the  world,  and  too  well  versed  in  its  ways  not  to 
know  what  was  due  to  royalty.  She  had  bowed 
her  head  on  hearing  the  words  of  Philippe  as  she 
would  have  bowed  to  the  King's  carriage  if  she  had 
had  the  honour  of  seeing  it  pass.  But  she  was 
wanting  in  enthusiasm  and  had  no  feeling  of  venera- 
tion. She  knew  all  about  princes  and  had  been  as 
intimate  as  it  is  possible  to  be  with  a  relation  of  the 
Due  d'Orleans.  This  had  occurred  in  an  unob- 
trusive little  house  in  the  Champs-filysees  district, 
one  afternoon.  They  had  said  all  that  they  had  to 
say,  and  the  occasion  had  not  had  a  sequel.  Mon- 
seigneur  had  been  pleasant  but  not  at  all  magnificent. 
Of  course  she  felt  honoured,  but  she  had  never  re- 
garded the  honour  as  either  very  special  or  very 
extraordinary.  She  respected  princes;  occasionally 
she  loved  them ;  but  she  did  not  dream  about  them, 
and  the  letter  left  her  quite  unmoved.  As  for  young 
Lacrisse,  the  sympathy  which  she  felt  for  him  was 
neither  ardent  nor  tumultuous.  She  understood  and 
approved  of  this  fair-haired  young  man.  He  was 
small,  slender  and  agreeable  enough,  though  he  was 
not  rich.  He  was  doing  his  very  utmost  to  profit 
by  the  Affair  and  acquire  importance.  She,  too, 
knew  by  experience  that  it  is  not  easy  to  live  in 
Society  if  one  is  poor.  They  were  both  working 
to  keep  their  footing  in  Society.  This  was  one 


102  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

reason  for  a  good  understanding  between  them. 
They  could  help  one  another  now  and  then.  But 
that  was  all  I 

"I  congratulate  you,  Monsieur  Lacrisse,"  she  said, 
"and  you  have  my  very  best  wishes." 

How  much  more  chivalrous  and  tender  were  the 
feelings  of  Baronne  Jules !  The  gentle  Viennese 
was  interested  heart  and  soul  in  this  fashionable  plot, 
of  which  the  white  carnation  was  the  emblem.  And 
she,  too,  was  so  fond  of  flowers !  To  be  mixed  up 
in  an  aristocratic  plot  in  favour  of  the  King  was 
to  her  to  enter  into  and  luxuriate  in  the  old  French 
nobility,  to  be  received  in  the  most  exclusive  houses, 
and  later  on,  perhaps,  to  go  to  Court.  She  was 
excited,  pleased  and  agitated.  Being  affectionate 
rather  than  ambitious,  her  susceptible  heart  was 
touched  by  what  she  was  pleased  to  consider  the 
poetry  of  the  Prince's  letter.  And  the  innocent 
woman  spoke  as  she  thought : 

"Monsieur  Lacrisse,  that  is  a  poetical  letter." 

"That  is  true,"  returned  Lacrisse. 

And  a  long  look  passed  between  them. 

After  this  nothing  further  memorable  was  said 
as  they  sat  in  the  summer's  night  before  the  flowers 
and  candles  of  the  little  restaurant  table. 

The  time  came  for  them  to  go.  As  Monsieur 
Joseph  Lacrisse  placed  her  cloak  round  the 
Baronne's  plump  shoulders,  she  held  out  her  hand 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  103 

to  Monsieur  de  Terremondre,  who  was  saying  good- 
bye. He  was  walking  to  Neuilly,  where  he  was 
staying  for  the  time  being. 

"It  is  quite  near,  only  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  I 
am  sure,  madame,  that  you  don't  know  Neuilly.  I 
have  discovered,  at  Saint- James,  the  remnant  of  an 
old  park,  with  a  group  by  Lemoyne  in  a  trellis-work 
arbour.  I  must  show  it  to  you  some  day." 

And  already  his  tall  strongly-built  figure  was  re- 
ceding along  the  path  that  lay  bathed  in  the  blue 
moonlight. 

The  Baronne  offered  to  give  the  Gromances  a 
lift  in  the  carriage  which  her  brother  Wallstein  had 
sent  for  her  from  the  club. 

"Get  in  with  me,  there  is  plenty  of  room  for 
three." 

But  the  Gromances  were  people  of  discretion. 
They  hailed  a  cab  which  had  stopped  outside  the 
restaurant  gates  and  got  into  it  before  she  had  time 
to  stop  them.  She  and  Joseph  Lacrisse  were  left 
standing  alone  by  the  open  door  of  the  carriage. 

"Would  you  like  a  lift,  Monsieur  Lacrisse?" 

"I  am  afraid  I  shall  be  in  your  way." 

"Not  in  the  least.     Where  shall  I  drop  you?" 

"At  the  fitoile." 

They  started  along  the  blue  road  bordered  by 
black  foliage,  in  the  silent  night. 


104  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

And  the  drive  came  to  an  end. 

The  Baronne  asked  as  the  carriage  stopped,  in 
the  voice  of  one  awakening  from  a  dream: 

"Where  are  we?" 

"At  the  fitoile,  alas !"  replied  Joseph  Lacrisse. 

And  when  he  had  left  her,  the  Baronne,  bowling 
along  the  Avenue  Marceau,  alone  in  the  now  chilly 
carriage,  held  a  torn  white  carnation  between  her 
bare  fingers.  With  half-closed  eyes  and  parted  lips, 
she  still  felt  the  eager  yet  gentle  embrace  which, 
pressing  the  royal  letter  against  her  bosom,  had 
filled  her  with  the  sweetness  of  love  and  the  pride 
of  glory.  She  felt  that  this  letter  endowed  her  little 
private  adventure  with  a  national  greatness  and  the 
majesty  of  the  history  of  France. 


CHAPTER  XI 

N  a  house  in  the  Rue  de  Berri,  at  the 
back  of  the  courtyard,  there  was  a 
little    entresol   which   was   lit   by   a 
trickle  of  daylight  as  dismal  as  the 
stone  walls  between  which  it  found 
its  difficult  way.     Henry  de  Brece,  son  of  the  Due 
Jean  de  Brece,  president  of  the  Executive  Commit- 
tee, was  seated  at  his  desk  with  a  sheet  of  paper 
before  him  on  which  he  was  turning  a  round  blot  of 
ink  into  a  balloon,  by  the  addition  of  netting,  ropes 
and  a  car.     On  the  wall  behind  him  was  nailed  a 
large  photograph  of  the  Prince,  looking  extremely 
feeble    in   his   vulgar   solemnity   and   heavy-witted 
youth.     Tricoloured  flags  spangled  with  fleurs  de  Us 
surrounded   the   portrait.     In  the   corners   of   the 
room  banners  were  displayed  on  which  loyal  ladies 
had  embroidered  golden  lilies  and  royalist  mottoes. 
At  the  back  of  the  room  several  cavalry  sabres  were 
fixed  to  the  wainscot,  with  a  cardboard  scroll  bearing 
the  inscription:  "Vive  I'armee!"     Below  them,  held 
in  place  by  pins,  was  a  caricature  of  Joseph  Reinach 
as  a  gorilla.     A  chest  for  papers,  a  strong  box,  a 

105 


io6  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

couch  and  four  chairs  and  a  writing-desk  in  some 
black  wood  composed  the  furniture  of  this  room, 
which  looked  both  comfortable  and  business-like. 
Propagandist  pamphlets  were  piled  in  heaps  against 
the  walls. 

Joseph  Lacrisse,  secretary  of  the  Departmental 
Committee  of  Young  Royalists,  was  standing  by  the 
fireplace  silently  conning  the  list  of  affiliated  mem- 
bers. Henri  Leon,  vice-president  of  the  Royalist 
Committees  of  the  South-West,  was  seated  astride 
a  chair,  where,  with  stony  gaze  and  knitted  brows, 
he  was  unfolding  his  ideas.  He  was  considered 
irrelevant  and  gloomy,  a  regular  skeleton  at  the 
feast,  but  his  inherited  financial  abilities  made  him 
of  value  to  his  associates.  He  was  the  son  of  that 
Leon-Leon,  the  banker  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons, 
who  had  come  to  grief  in  the  smash  of  the  Union 
generate. 

"We  are  being  hemmed  in,  I  don't  care  what 
you  say,  we  are  being  hemmed  in,  I  feel  it.  Day  by 
day  the  circle  is  closing  upon  us.  When  Meline 
was  with  us  we  had  air  and  space,  as  much  space  as 
we  wanted.  We  were  free  to  do  as  we  liked." 

He  jerked  his  elbows  and  moved  his  arms  about 
as  though  to  demonstrate  the  ease  with  which  people 
manoeuvred  in  those  happy  days  which  were  no  more. 
He  continued : 

"With  Meline  we  had  everything.     We  Royalists 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  107 

held  the  Government,  the  army,  the  magistracy,  the 
administrations  and  the  police." 

"We  still  have  all  that,"  said  Henri  de  Brece, 
"and  public  opinion  is  more  than  ever  with  us  now 
that  the  Government  is  so  unpopular." 

"It's  no  longer  the  same  thing.  With  Meline 
we  were  pseudo-official,  we  were  supporters  of  the 
Government,  we  were  Conservatives;  the  conditions 
were  ideal  for  conspiracy.  Don't  make  any  mistake 
about  that.  France  as  a  whole  is  conservative,  and 
domestic  and  changes  alarm  her.  Meline  did  us 
the  enormous  service  of  making  us  appear  reassur- 
ing; we  appeared  to  be  kindly  and  benign,  as  benign 
as  he  himself  appeared.  He  told  the  people  that 
we  were  the  true  Republicans,  and  the  people  be- 
lieved him.  You  had  only  to  look  into  his  face; 
you  couldn't  suspect  him  of  a  jest.  Through  him 
we  were  accepted  by  public  opinion,  and  that  in 
itself  is  no  small  service." 

"Meline  was  a  good  sort,"  sighed  Henri  de 
Brece,  "We  must  at  least  do  him  that  justice." 

"He  was  a  patriot,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse. 

"With  such  a  minister,"  continued  Henri  Leon, 
"we  had  everything,  we  were  everything  and  we 
could  do  everything.  We  had  no  need  to  conceal 
ourselves.  We  were  not  outside  the  Republic;  we 
were  above  it,  and  we  dominated  it  from  the  full 
height  of  our  patriotism.  We  were  everything;  we 


io8  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

were  France  herself !  I  must  admit  that  the  Repub- 
lic is  good  enough  at  times,  though  I'm  not  smitten 
with  the  hussy.  Under  Meline  the  police — I  don't 
exaggerate— were  exquisitely  agreeable.  During  a 
Royalist  demonstration  which  you  very  kindly  or- 
ganized, Brece,  I  yelled  'Five  la  police*  till  I  was 
hoarse!  And  I  meant  it.  The  enthusiasm  with 
which  they  clubbed  the  Republicans  I  Gerault- 
Richard  was  put  in  gaol  for  shouting  'Five  la  Re- 
publiqitef  Ah,  Meline  spoiled  us,  made  life  too 
pleasant  for  us.  A  wet-nurse,  positively!  He 
rocked  us  to  sleep.  That's  a  fact.  General  Decuir 
himself  used  to  say,  'Now  that  we've  got  all  we  can 
possibly  want,  what's  'the  good  of  upsetting  the 
whole  caboodle  and  getting  a  nasty  spill  in  doing 
it?'  Thrice-happy  days  when  Meline  led  the  dance ! 
Nationalists,  Monarchists,  anti-Semites  and  Plebis- 
citarians,  we  all  danced  in  unison  to  the  sound  of 
his  rustic  fiddle. 

"We  were  all  countrified  and  content.  When 
Dupuy  came  along  I  was  less  pleased;  with  him 
things  were  not  so  honest  and  above-board ;  we  were 
not  so  sure  of  ourselves.  Of  course  he  didn't  want 
to  harm  us,  but  he  was  not  a  true  friend.  He  was 
not  the  kindly  village  fiddler  leading  the  wedding 
procession.  He  was  a  fat  coachman  jogging  us 
along  in  his  cab.  And  we  tore  along,  hanging  on 
anyhow,  always  in  danger  of  being  upset.  He  had 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  109 

a  hard  hand  on  the  reins.  You  will  be  telling  me 
that  his  clumsiness  was  feigned;  yes,  but  feigned 
clumsiness  is  tremendously  like  the  real  thing. 
Besides,  he  never  knew  where  he  wanted  to  go. 
There  are  people  like  that,  fellows  who  don't  know 
your  address  but  drive  you  indefinitely  along  im- 
possible roads,  winking  maliciously  as  they  do  it. 
It  unnerves  one." 

"I  don't  defend  Dupuy,"  said  Henri  de  Brece. 

"I  don't  attack  him.  I  watch  him,  study  him 
and  classify  him.  I  don't  dislike  him;  he's  been  of 
great  service  to  us.  Don't  forget  it.  If  it  were 
not  for  him,  we  should  all  be  doing  time  to-day. 
Oh  yes,  I  mean  it.  I'm  referring  to  Faure's  funeral, 
the  great  day  fixed  for  simultaneous  action.  Well, 
my  dear  friends,  after  the  failure  of  the  great  coup 
we  should  have  been  done  for,  had  it  not  been  for 
Dupuy." 

"It  wasn't  us  he  wanted  to  spare,"  said  Joseph 
Lacrisse,  with  his  nose  in  his  ledger. 

"I  know  that.  He  saw  at  a  glance  that  he 
couldn't  do  anything  because  there  were  some  gen- 
erals mixed  up  in  the  business.  It  was  too  big  for 
him.  But  that  doesn't  alter  the  fact  that  we  owe 
him  a  jolly  big  candle."  * 

*  A  reference  to  the  practice  of  burning  candles  to  induce 
the  Virgin,  or  a  Saint,  to  listen  to  a  prayer,  or  in  token  of 
gratitude  for  a  prayer  granted. 


i  io  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Bah!"  said  Henri  de  Brece.  "We  should  have 
been  acquitted,  like  Deroulede." 

"It's  possible,  but  Dupuy  allowed  us  plenty  of 
time  to  pull  ourselves  together  after  the  funeral 
stampede,  and  I  confess  I  am  grateful  to  him  for 
that.  On  the  other  hand,  without  ill  will,  possibly 
without  intending  it,  he  has  done  us  a  great  deal 
of  harm.  Suddenly,  just  when  we  least  expected 
such  a  thing,  he  appeared  to  be  furiously  angry  with 
us.  He  made  out  that  he  was  defending  the  Repub- 
lic. His  position  demanded  the  attitude;  I  recog- 
nize that.  It  wasn't  a  serious  matter,  but  it  had  a 
bad  effect.  I  get  tired  of  telling  you  the  same  thing; 
that  this  country  is  conservative  at  heart.  Unlike 
Meline,  Dupuy  did  not  tell  people  that  we  were  the 
Republicans,  that  we  were  the  Conservatives;  for 
that  matter,  no  one  would  have  believed  him  if  he 
had.  During  his  ministry  we  lost  something  of  our 
authority  over  the  country.  We  were  no  longer  on 
the  side  of  the  government.  We  were  no  longer 
reassuring;  professional  Republicans  began  to  feel 
anxious  about  us.  That  was  to  our  credit,  but  it 
was  dangerous.  Our  position  was  not  so  good 
under  Dupuy  as  under  Meline,  and  it  is  worse  to- 
day, under  Waldeck-Rousseau,  than  it  was  under 
Dupuy.  That's  the  truth,  the  bitter  truth." 

"Of  course,"  said  Henri  de  Brece,  pulling  his 
moustache,  "of  course  the  Waldeck-Millerand  Min- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  in 

istry  is  actuated  by  the  worst  intentions,  but  I  repeat 
it's  unpopular  and  it  won't  last." 

"It  may  be  unpopular,"  returned  Henri  Leon, 
"but  are  you  quite  sure  it  won't  last  long  enough  to 
do  us  harm?  Unpopular  governments  last  as  long 
as  popular  ones.  To  begin  with,  no  government  is 
ever  really  popular.  To  govern  is  to  displease. 
We  are  among  ourselves  and  there  is  no  need  to 
mince  matters.  Do  you  for  one  moment  imagine 
that  we  shall  be  popular  when  we  form  the  govern- 
ment? Do  you  imagine,  Brece,  that  the  people  will 
weep  with  emotion  when  they  see  you  attired  as 
king's  chamberlain  with  a  key  hanging  down  your 
back?  And  you,  Lacrisse,  do  you  suppose  you'll  be 
cheered  in  the  working-class  districts  during  a  strike, 
when  you  are,  say,  prefect  of  police?  Look  at 
yourself  in  the  glass  and  then  tell  me  whether  you 
look  like  an  idol  of  the  people.  Don't  let  us  deceive 
ourselves.  We  say  that  the  Waldeck-Millerand 
Cabinet  is  composed  of  idiots;  we  are  quite  right  to 
say  so,  but  we  should  be  wrong  to  believe  it." 

"What  ought  to  encourage  us,"  said  Joseph 
Lacrisse,  "is  the  weakness  of  a  government  which 
cannot  enforce  obedience." 

"All  our  governments  have  been  weak  for  many 
a  long  year,"  said  Henri  Leon,  "but  they  have 
always  been  strong  enough  to  defeat  us." 

"The  Waldeck  Ministry  has  not  a  single  police- 


ii2  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

commissary  at  its  disposal,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse. 
"Not  one!" 

"So  much  the  better  for  us,"  said  Henri  Leon, 
"for  one  would  be  enough  to  jug  all  three  of  us. 
I  tell  you  the  circle  is  closing  in.  Consider  these 
words  of  a  philosopher;  they  are  worth  the  trouble: 
'Republicans  govern  badly,  but  they  defend  them- 
selves well.'  ' 

But  Henri  de  Brece,  bending  over  his  desk,  was 
turning  a  second  blot  of  ink  into  a  beetle  by  the 
addition  of  a  head,  two  antennae  and  six  legs.  He 
gave  a  satisfied  glance  at  his  work,  looked  up  and 
remarked : 

"We  still  hold  trump  cards,  the  Army,  the 
Church " 

Henri  Leon  interrupted  him: 

"The  Army,  the  Church,  the  magistracy,  the 
bourgeoisie,  the  butcher  boys — in  other  words,  the 
whole  excursion  train  of  the  Republic.  The  train 
is  travelling  nevertheless,  and  will  continue  to  do  so 
until  the  driver  stops  the  engine." 

"Ah,"  sighed  Joseph  Lacrisse,  "if  only  we  had 
President  Faure  with  us  still." 

"Felix  Faure,"  resumed  Henri  Leon,  "joined  us 
out  of  sheer  vanity.  He  became  a  Nationalist  in 
order  to  get  invitations  to  hunt  with  the  Breces,  but 
he  would  have  turned  against  us  as  soon  as  he  saw 
us  on  the  verge  of  success.  It  was  not  in  his  interest 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  113 

to  restore  the  monarchy.  Dame!  What  could  the 
monarchy  have  offered  him?  We  could  not  have 
offered  him  a  Lord  High  Constable's  baton.  We 
may  regret  him,  for  he  loved  the  army;  we  may 
mourn  him,  but  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
inconsolable.  He  was  not  the  driver;  Loubet  is  not 
the  driver  either;  the  President  of  the  Republic, 
whoever  he  may  be,  is  never  master  of  his  engine. 
To  me  the  ghastly  part  of  it  is  that  the  Republican 
train  is  controlled  by  a  phantom  driver.  He  is  in- 
visible, and  yet  the  train  rushes  on.  It  positively 
frightens  me. 

"Then  there  is  another  thing,"  he  continued, 
"and  that  is  the  general  indifference  of  the  public. 
Speaking  of  that,  reminds  me  of  a  very  significant 
remark  once  made  by  Citizen  Bissolo.  It  was  when 
the  anti-Semites  and  ourselves  were  organizing  spon- 
taneous manifestations  against  Loubet.  Our  crowds 
went  down  the  boulevards  shouting  'Panama !  Re- 
sign! Long  live  the  Army!'  It  was  magnificent. 
Young  Ponthieu  and  General  Decuir's  two  sons 
headed  the  crowd,  with  glossy  silk  hats,  white  car- 
nations in  their  buttonholes,  and  gold-headed  canes 
in  their  hands.  And  the  toughest  hooligans  of  Paris 
made  up  the  procession.  We  had  seen  to  that,  and 
as  it  was  a  case  of  good  pay  and  no  risk  we  had 
our  pick.  They  would  have  been  sorry  to  miss 


u4  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

such  a  lark.     Lord !  what  voices  they  had,  and  what 
fists,  and  what  cudgels ! 

"A  counter-manifestation  quickly  made  its  ap- 
pearance; a  smaller  and  more  insignificant  crowd, 
though  warlike  and  determined  enough,  advanced  to 
meet  us  amid  shouts  of  'Long  live  the  Republic! 
Down  with  the  priests !'  with  an  occasional  solitary 
cry  for  Loubet  that  seemed  surprised  to  find  itself 
in  the  air.  Before  it  was  over  this  unexpected  dis- 
turbance aroused  the  anger  of  the  police,  who  at 
that  moment  were  barricading  the  boulevard  and 
looking  just  like  an  austere  border  of  black  wool 
on  a  brightly  variegated  carpet.  Soon,  however, 
this  black  border,  actuated  by  a  movement  of  its 
own,  hurled  itself  upon  the  van  of  the  counter- 
manifestation,  while  another  body  of  police  har- 
assed them  from  the  rear.  In  this  way  the  police 
had  soon  dispersed  the  partisans  of  Monsieur 
Loubet,  dragging  the  unrecognizable  debris  off  to  the 
insidious  depths  of  the  Drouot  police-station.  That 
was  the  way  they  did  things  in  those  troublous  times. 
Was  Monsieur  Loubet,  at  the  filysee,  ignorant  of 
the  methods  employed  by  his  police  for  enforcing 
in  the  streets  of  Paris  respect  for  the  head  of  the 
State?  Or,  if  he  knew  of  them,  was  he  unable  and 
unwilling  to  alter  them?  I  do  not  know.  Did  he 
realize  that  his  unpopularity,  real  and  undoubted 
as  it  was,  was  fading  into  insignificance,  almost  dis- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  115 

appearing  in  fact,  before  the  strange  and  agreeable 
spectacle  which  was  offered  nightly  to  a  witty  and 
intelligent  people?  I  do  not  think  so,  for  in  that 
case  the  man  would  have  been  a  terrifying  person; 
he  would  have  been  a  genius,  and  I  should  no  longer 
feel  confident  of  sleeping  outside  the  King's  door 
at  the  filysee  this  winter.  No,  I  believe  Loubet 
was  once  again  so  fortunate  as  to  be  unable  to  do 
anything.  Anyhow,  it  is  certain  that  the  police, 
who  acted  spontaneously  and  solely  out  of  the  good- 
ness of  their  hearts,  succeeded,  by  their  sympathetic 
repression,  in  shedding  over  the  advent  of  the  Presi- 
dent a  little  of  that  popular  rejoicing  which  had  been 
totally  lacking.  In  so  doing,  if  one  considers  the 
matter,  they  did  us  more  harm  than  good,  for  they 
pleased  the  public,  while  it  was  to  our  advantage 
that  the  general  discontent  should  increase. 

"However,  one  night,  one  of  the  last  of  that 
eventful  week,  when  the  expected  manoeuvre  was 
taking  place  from  point  to  point,  and  the  counter- 
manifestation  found  itself  attacked  simultaneously  in 
the  van  and  in  the  rear  by  the  police  and  in  flank  by 
us,  I  saw  Bissolo  extricate  himself  from  the  menaced 
van  of  the  Republicans  and,  with  long  strides  and  a 
desperate  wriggling  of  his  little  body,  reach  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  Drouot,  where  I  was  standing 
with  a  dozen  or  so  roughs  who  in  response  to  my 
orders  were  shouting  'Panama!  Resign  1*  It  was 


ii6  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

a  nice  quiet  little  corner!  I  beat  time,  and  my 
men  pronounced  each  syllable  with  great  distinctness 
— 'Pa-na-ma !'  It  was  really  done  with  taste. 
Bissolo  took  refuge  between  my  legs.  He  feared 
me  far  less  than  the  police ;  and  he  was  right.  For 
two  years  Citizen  Bissolo  and  I  had  met  face  to  face 
in  all  our  manifestations:  we  had  headed  the  pro- 
cessions at  the  beginning  and  end  of  every  meeting. 
We  had  exchanged  every  imaginable  sort  of  political 
insult :  'Hypocrite !  Time-server !  Forger  1  Traitor  I 
Assassin !  Outcast !'  That  sort  of  thing  binds  peo- 
ple together  and  creates  a  mutual  sympathy.  Be- 
sides, it  pleased  me  to  see  a  Socialist,  almost  a 
Libertarian,  standing  up  for  Loubet,  who  is  in  his 
own  fashion  a  Moderate.  I  said  to  myself:  'The 
President  must  hate  being  acclaimed  by  Bissolo,  a 
dwarf  with  a  voice  of  thunder,  who  at  all  public 
meetings  demands  the  nationalization  of  capital. 
Bourgeois  that  he  is,  the  President  would  surely 
prefer  a  bourgeois  like  myself  for  a  supporter.  But 
he  can  feel  in  his  pockets.'  Panama !  Panama ! 
Resign!  Resign!  Long  live  the  Army!  -Down 
with  the  Jews  I  Long  live  the  King ! 

"All  this  made  me  treat  Bissolo  with  courtesy. 
I  had  only  to  say  'Hullo,  here's  Bissolo,"  and  my 
dozen  costers  would  promptly  have  cut  him  in 
pieces,  but  that  wouldn't  have  done  any  good.  I 
said  nothing.  We  were  very  quiet;  we  stood  be- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  117 

side  one  another  and  watched  the  march  past  of 
Joubet's  supporters  driven  to  the  police-station  in 
the  Rue  Drouot.  Most  of  them,  having  previously 
been  clubbed,  staggered  along  beside  the  police  like 
so  many  drunkards.  Among  them  was  a  Socialist 
deputy,  a  very  handsome  man  with  a  big  beard; 
his  sleeves  had  been  torn  off;  there  was  a  young 
apprentice  sobbing  and  crying  'Mother!  Mother!' 
and  the  editor  of  some  trashy  daily  with  two  black 
eyes  and  his  nose  streaming  with  blood.  And  the 
Marseillaise!  'Qu'un  sang  impur.'  ...  I  noticed 
one  man  who  was  far  more  respectable  and  far  more 
sorry  for  himself  than  the  rest.  He  looked  like  a 
professor,  a  serious,  middle-aged  man.  He  had  evi- 
dently made  an  attempt  to  explain  his  point  of  view; 
he  had  tried  subtle  and  persuasive  arguments  on  the 
police.  Otherwise  the  way  in  which  they  were  kick- 
ing him  in  the  back  with  their  hobnailed  boots  and 
banging  him  with  their  fists  was  quite  inexplicable. 
And  as  he  was  very  tall,  very  thin,  anything  but 
strong,  and  weighed  very  little,  he  skipped  about 
under  these  blows  in  the  most  ridiculous  fashion. 
He  displayed  a  comical  tendency  to  make  his  escape 
upwards.  His  bare  head  had  a  most  pitiable  ap- 
pearance. He  had  that  submerged  expression  which 
comes  over  a  short-sighted  man  when  he  has  lost 
his  glasses.  His  face  expressed  the  infinite  distress 


n8  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

of  a  being  whose  only  contact  with  the  outside  world 
comes  through  sturdy  fists  and  hobnailed  boots. 

"As  this  unfortunate  prisoner  passed  us,  Bissolo, 
although  he  was  on  hostile  territory,  could  not  help 
sighing  and  saying:  'It  is  a  strange  thing  that  Re- 
publicans should  be  so  treated  in  a  Republic.'  I 
politely  replied  that  it  was  in  truth  somewhat  amus- 
ing. "No,  Citizen  Monarchist,"  replied  Bissolo, 
'it  is  not  amusing,  it  is  sad.  But  that  is  not  the 
chief  misfortune.  The  chief  misfortune,  I  tell  you, 
is  the  lethargy  of  the  public.'  Bissolo  spoke  these 
words  with  a  confidence  that  did  us  both  honour. 
I  glanced  at  the  crowd,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  it 
seemed  to  me  flabby  and  without  energy.  Now  and 
then  a  cry  rose  from  its  depths  like  a  firework  let 
off  by  a  child:  'Down  with  Loubet!  Down  with 
the  thieves !  Down  with  the  Jews !  Long  live  the 
Army  I'  And  it  seemed  friendly  enough  towards 
the  worthy  police,  but  there  was  no  electricity  in  the 
air — no  storm  brewing.  Citizen  Bissolo  continued 
with  melancholy  philosophy:  'The  great  evil  is  the 
lethargy  of  the  public.  We  Republicans,  Socialists 
and  Libertarians  are  suffering  from  it  to-day.  You 
Monarchists  and  Imperialists  will  suffer  from  it  to- 
morrow, and  will  learn  in  your  turn  that  you  may 
lead  a  horse  to  the  water  but  you  can't  make  him 
drink.  Republicans  are  arrested  and  no  one  stirs 
a  finger ;  and  when  it  is  the  turn  of  the  Royalists  to 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  119 

be  arrested,  no  one  will  stir  a  finger,  you  may  be 
sure  of  that.  The  crowd  will  not  stir  an  inch  to 
deliver  you,  Monsieur  Henri  Leon,  or  your  friend 
Monsieur  Deroulede.' 

"I  must  admit  that  by  the  light  of  these  words 
I  seemed  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  profoundly  dismal 
future  flashing  across  my  vision.  Somewhat  osten- 
tatiously, however,  I  replied:  'Citizen  Bissolo,  there 
is  nevertheless  this  difference  between  you  and  our- 
selves— that  the  crowd  looks  upon  you  as  a  mob  of 
time-servers  without  love  for  your  country,  while 
we  Monarchists  and  Imperialists  enjoy  the  esteem 
of  the  public.  We  are  popular.'  Citizen  Bissolo 
smiled  pleasantly  at  this  and  remarked:  'Your  horse 
is  there,  monseigneur,  and  you  have  only  to  mount 
her.  But  when  you  are  on  her  back  she  will  quietly 
lie  down  by  the  side  of  the  road  and  will  pitch  you 
off.  There  is  no  sorrier  jade  anywhere,  I  warn  you. 
Tell  me  which  one  of  her  riders  has  not  had  his  back 
broken  by  popularity?  In  time  of  peril  have  the 
people  ever  been  able  to  offer  the  least  assistance 
to  their  idols?  You  Nationalists  are  not  so  popular 
as  you  profess,  you  and  your  candidate  Gamelle  are 
almost  unknown  to  the  general  public.  But  if  ever 
the  mob  enfolds  you  in  its  loving  embrace,  you  will 
very  quickly  discover  its  stupendous  impotence  and 
cowardice.' 

"I  could  not  refrain  from  reproaching  Bissolo 


120  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

severely  for  calumniating  the  French  public.  He 
replied  that  he  was  a  sociologist,  that  his  Socialism 
was  based  on  science,  and  that  he  had  a  little  box 
at  home  filled  with  actual  facts  minutely  classified, 
which  enabled  him  to  bring  about  a  methodical  revo- 
lution. And  he  added :  'Science,  and  not  the  people, 
possesses  sovereign  power.  A  stupidity  repeated  by 
thirty-six  millions  of  mouths  does  not  for  that  reason 
cease  to  be  stupid.  Majorities,  as  a  general  rule, 
display  a  superior  capacity  for  servitude.  Among 
the  weak,  weakness  is  multiplied  in  proportion  to 
number.  Mobs  are  always  inert.  They  possess  a 
little  energy  only  when  they  are  starving.  I  can 
prove  to  you  that  on  the  morning  of  the  roth  of 
August,  1792,  the  people  of  Paris  were  still  Royal- 
ists. I  have  been  addressing  public  meetings  for  ten 
years  and  have  had  my  share  of  hard  blows.  The 
education  of  the  people  has  hardly  commenced ;  that 
is  the  fact  of  the  matter.  In  the  brain  of  the  work- 
ing man,  in  the  palace  where  the  bourgeois  carry  their 
inept  and  brutal  prejudices,  there  is  a  great  cavity. 
That  has  got  to  be  filled.  We  shall  do  it.  It  will 
take  a  long  time.  In  the  meanwhile  it  is  better  to 
have  an  empty  head  than  one  filled  with  toads  and 
serpents.  All  this  is  scientific  fact;  it's  all  in  my 
box.  It  is  all  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  evolu- 
tion. Nevertheless  the  general  poltroonery  disgusts 
me.  And  in  your  place  it  would  frighten  me.  Look 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  121 

at  your  partisans,  the  defenders  of  the  sword  and 
the  Church,  did  you  ever  see  anything  so  flabby,  so 
gelatinous?'  Having  spoken,  he  stretched  out  his 
arms,  gave  a  wild  cry  of  'Long  live  Socialism!' 
plunged  head  foremost  in  the  enormous  crowd,  and 
disappeared  in  the  sea  of  people." 

Joseph  Lacrisse,  who  had  listened  without  en- 
thusiasm to  this  long  story,  asked  whether  Citizen 
Bissolo  wasn't  merely  an  animal. 

"On  the  contrary,  he  is  a  very  clever  man,"  re- 
plied Henri  Leon,  "the  sort  of  man  one  would  like 
to  have  as  a  neighbour  in  the  country,  as  Bismarck 
used  to  say  of  Lassalle.  Bissolo  spoke  only  too 
truly  when  he  said  that  you  may  lead  a  horse  to  the 
water,  but  you  can't  make  him  drink." 


CHAPTER  XII 

ADAME    DE    JBONMONT    con- 

ceived  of  love  as  an  abyss  of  delight. 
After  that  dinner  at  the  Madrid, 
glorified  as  it  had  been  by  the  reading 
of  the  royal  letter,  she  had  said  to 
Joseph  Lacrisse  as  they  returned  from  the  Bois, 
while  the  carriage  was  still  warm  with  an  historic 
embrace :  "This  will  be  for  ever  1"  and  these  words, 
meaningless  as  they  will  seem  if  we  consider  the 
impermanence  of  the  elements  which  make  up  the 
substance  of  the  erotic  emotions,  were  none  the  less 
indicative  of  a  proper  spirituality  and  of  longing 
for  the  infinite  which  conferred  a  certain  distinction. 
"Quite !"  had  been  the  answer  of  Joseph  Lacrisse. 

Two  weeks  had  passed  since  that  happy  night, 
two  weeks  during  which  the  secretary  of  the  Depart- 
mental Committee  of  Young  Royalists  had  divided 
his  rime  between  the  demands  of  his  work  and  those 
of  his  love.  Dressed  in  a  tailor-made  costume,  her 
face  covered  with  a  white  lace  veil,  the  Baronne 
had  come,  at  the  appointed  hour,  to  the  first-floor 
flat  of  a  discreet  little  house  in  the  Rue  Lord-Byron, 

122 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  123 

Here  were  three  rooms  which  she  had  herself  fur- 
nished with  a  heart  full  of  tenderness,  hanging  them 
with  that  celestial  blue  which  had  formerly  figured 
in  her  forgotten  love-affair  with  Raoul  Marcien. 

She  found  Joseph  Lacrisse  well-mannered,  proud 
and  even  a  little  shy.  He  was  young  and  charming, 
but  not  exactly  what  she  had  wanted.  He  was 
gloomy  and  seemed  uneasy.  With  his  frowning 
brows  and  thin  tightly-closed  lips  he  would  have 
reminded  her  of  Kara,  had  she  not  possessed  to  the 
full  the  delightful  faculty  of  forgetting  the  past. 
She  knew  that  if  he  was  anxious  it  was  not  without 
cause.  She  knew  that  he  was  a  conspirator  and  that 
it  fell  to  his  share  to  hoodwink  the  prefect  and  the 
chief  Republicans  of  a  very  populous  department; 
and  she  knew  that  in  this  enterprise  he  was  risking 
his  liberty  and  his  life  for  the  sake  of  King  and 
Church.  It  was  precisely  because  he  was  a  conspira- 
tor that  she  had  first  loved  him.  But  now  she  would 
have  liked  him  to  be  more  cheerful  and  more  affec- 
tionate. He  welcomed  her  warmly  enough,  how- 
ever, saying: 

"It  is  an  intoxication  to  see  you!  For  the  last 
fortnight  I  have  positively  been  walking  in  a  starry 
dream."  And  he  had  added:  "How  delicious  you 
are!" 

But  he  hardly  looked  at  her,  and  at  once  went 
to  the  window,  where  he  lifted  a  corner  of  the  cur- 


124  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

tain,  and  for  ten  minutes  remained  there  peering 
through  the  opening. 

Then,  without  turning  round,  he  remarked: 

"I  told  you  that  we  ought  to  have  two  exits,  and 
you  wouldn't  believe  me.  It's  a  good  thing  we  are 
in  front  anyhow,  but  I  can't  see  properly  because 
of  the  tree." 

"The  acacia?"  sighed  the  Baronne  as  she  slowly 
untied  her  veil. 

The  house  stood  back  from  the  road,  facing  a 
little  courtyard,  containing  an  acacia  and  a  dozen 
spindle-trees,  shut  in  by  an  ivy-covered  railing. 

"Yes,  the  acacia,  if  you  like." 

"What  are  you  looking  at,  mon  ami?" 

"At  a  man  stuck  against  the  wall  opposite." 

"Who  is  he?" 

"I  don't  know.  I'm  looking  to  see  if  he  is  one 
of  my  detectives.  I'm  fed  up.  Since  I've  been  in 
Paris  I've  had  two  of  them  at  my  heels  all  day.  It 
gets  on  one's  nerves  in  the  end.  But  this  time  I 
quite  thought  I'd  managed  to  give  them  the  slip." 

"Couldn't  you  complain?" 

"To  whom?" 

"I  don't  know — to  the  Government." 

He  made  no  reply,  but  stood  for  awhile  still 
watching.  Then,  having  made  sure  that  it  was  not 
one  of  his  pursuers,  his  countenance  cleared  and  he 
came  over  to  her. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  125 

"How  I  love  you!  You  are  lovelier  than  ever. 
You  are,  truly,  and  I  adore  you.  But  what  if  they 
had  put  different  men  on  to  me  this  time!  It's 
Dupuy  who  put  them  on  my  track.  A  tall  fellow 
and  a  short  one.  The  tall  one  wore  black  glasses 
and  the  short  one  had  a  nose  like  a  parrot's  beak 
and  little  bright  eyes  like  a  bird's  that  were  always 
glancing  sideways.  I  knew  them  well.  They  weren't 
much  to  be  feared.  They  were  always  after  me. 
When  I  went  to  the  Club  my  friends  would  tell  me 
as  they  came  in,  'Lacrisse,  I've  just  seen  your  two 
fellows  at  the  door.'  I  used  to  send  them  out  beer 
and  cigars.  Sometimes  I  would  ask  myself  if 
Dupuy  did  not  set  them  on  me  to  protect  me.  He 
was  brusque  and  queer  and  irritable,  but  a  patriot 
all  the  same.  He  wasn't  a  bit  like  the  men  in  power 
to-day.  With  them  you've  got  to  be  on  your  guard. 
What  if  they've  changed  my  detectives,  the  brutes !" 

He  went  to  the  window  again. 

"No,  it's  only  a  coachman  smoking  his  pipe.  I 
didn't  notice  his  yellow-striped  waistcoat.  Fear  dis- 
torts objects,  that  certain!  I  must  confess  I  was 
afraid — on  your  account,  as  you  may  imagine.  You 
must  not  be  compromised  through  me,  you  who  are 
so  charming,  so  delicious!" 

He  sat  beside  her  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  cov- 
ering her  with  vehement  caresses.  Presently  she 
found  that  her  dress  was  in  such  disorder  that  mod- 


ia6  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

esty  alone,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  motive,  would 
have  forced  her  to  remove  it. 

"Elisabeth,  tell  me  you  love  me." 

"If  I  did  not  love  you,  it  seems  to  me " 

"Do  you  hear  that  heavy,  regular  footfall  in  the 
street?" 

"No,  mon  ami. 

And  it  was  true ;  plunged  into  a  delicious  oblivion 
she  was  not  listening  for  sounds  from  the  outer 
world. 

"There's  no  doubt  this  time,  it's  he,  my  man, 
the  little  one,  the  bird.  I  know  his  step  so  well  that 
I  could  pick  it  out  among  a  thousand." 

And  he  returned  to  the  window. 

These  alarms  set  his  nerves  on  edge.  Since  the 
failure  of  the  28th  of  February  he  had  lost  his  ad- 
mirable assurance  and  was  beginning  to  anticipate  a 
long  and  difficult  affair.  Most  of  his  companions 
were  growing  discouraged  and  he  himself  suspicious. 
Everything  irritated  him. 

And  now  she  made  an  unfortunate  remark: 

"Don't  forget,  mon  ami,  that  I've  got  you  an 
invitation  to  dinner  to-morrow  at  my  brother's.  It 
will  be  an  opportunity  of  meeting." 

His  irritation  burst  forth: 

"Your  brother  Wallstein !  Ah,  yes,  let's  talk  of 
him!  He's  a  true  Jew  if  you  like.  This  week 
Henri  Leon  told  him  about  an  interesting  undertak- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  127 

ing,  a  propagandist  newspaper  which  must  be  dis- 
tributed gratuitously  in  large  quantities  throughout 
the  country  and  in  the  manufacturing  centres.  He 
pretended  not  to  understand  what  Leon  was  driving 
at  and  gave  him  advice — good  advice!  Does  your 
brother  imagine  for  a  moment  that  it  is  his  advice 
that  we  want?" 

Elisabeth  was  an  anti-Semite.  She  felt  that  she 
could  not  with  decency  defend  her  brother  Wallstein, 
of  Vienna,  of  whom  she  was  exceedingly  fond.  She 
remained  silent. 

Lacrisse  began  to  play  with  a  small  revolver 
which  lay  upon  the  table. 

"If  they  attempt  to  arrest  me  here "  he  said. 

A  fit  of  rage  seized  him.  He  cried  out  against 
the  Jews,  Protestants,  Freemasons,  Freethinkers, 
Parliamentarians,  Republicans  and  Ministers.  He 
would  like  to  flog  them  in  public,  and  bathe  them 
in  vitriol.  He  waxed  eloquent  and  broke  into  the 
pious  language  of  the  Croix. 

"The  Jews  and  Freemasons  are  ruining  France, 
ruining  us,  eating  us  up.  But  patience !  Wait  until 
after  the  Rennes  trial,  and  then  you  will  see  how 
we  will  bleed  them,  split  them  up,  smoke  their  hams, 
singe  their  hides  and  hang  their  heads  in  the  pork- 
butchers'  shops !  Everything  is  ready.  The  move- 
ment will  break  out  simultaneously  in  Rennes  and  in 
Paris.  The  Dreyfusards  will  be  trampled  in  the 


128  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

streets.  Loubet  will  be  roasted  in  the  flames  of  the 
filysee,  and  none  too  soon  either." 

Madame  de  Bonmont  conceived  of  love  as  an 
abyss  of  delight.  She  did  not  hold  it  sufficient  unto 
the  day  to  forget  the  world  once  only  in  this  room 
of  sky-blue  hangings.  She  sought  to  lead  her  lover 
back  to  gentler  thoughts.  So  she  said: 

"What  beautiful  eyelashes  you  have !" 

And  she  covered  his  eyelids  with  tiny  kisses. 

When  she  languidly  opened  her  eyes  again,  lan- 
guishing and  recalling  to  her  happy  mind  the  infinity 
that  had  filled  it  for  a  moment,  she  noticed  that 
Joseph  was  anxious  and  seemed  far  away  from  her, 
although  she  still  held  him  with  one  of  her  soft, 
beautiful,  supple  arms.  With  a  voice  tender  as  a 
sigh,  she  asked  him : 

"What  is  the  matter,  mon  ami?  We  were  so 
happy  just  now." 

"Of  course  we  were,"  replied  Joseph  Lacrisse. 
"But  I've  just  remembered  three  telegrams  in  cipher 
which  have  to  be  sent  off  before  night.  It  is  a 
complicated  matter,  and  a  dangerous  one.  We 
really  thought  for  a  moment  that  Dupuy  had  inter- 
cepted our  telegrams  on  February  22nd.  There  was 
enough  in  them  to  jug  the  lot  of  us." 

"But  he  did  not  intercept  them,  mon  ami?" 

"We  must  suppose  not,  as  we  were  not  molested. 
But  I  have  my  reasons  for  believing  that  for  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  129 

last  fortnight  the  Government  have  had  an  eye  on 
us,  and  until  this  wretched  Republic  is  done  for  I 
shan't  have  a  moment's  peace." 

Tender  and  radiant,  she  put  her  arms  about  his 
neck,  like  a  scented  garland  of  flowers,  and  gazing 
at  him  with  her  moist  sapphire  eyes  she  said,  with 
a  smile  upon  her  fresh,  ardent  mouth : 

"Do  not  be  anxious,  mon  ami.  Do  not  worry 
so.  I  am  sure  you  will  succeed.  Their  Republic 
is  done  for.  How  could  it  resist  you?  The  people 
have  had  enough  of  Parliamentarians.  They  don't 
want  any  more  of  them,  I'm  certain.  Nor  of  the 
Freemasons,  and  Freethinkers,  and  all  those  horrible 
godless  people  who  have  neither  religion  nor  country. 
For  one's  country  and  one's  religion  are  the  same 
thing,  aren't  they?  There  is  a  wonderful  spiritual 
impulse  abroad.  On  Sunday,  at  Mass,  the  churches 
are  full.  And  not  only  of  women,  as  the  Repub- 
licans would  have  us  believe.  There  are  gentlemen 
and  officers.  Believe  me,  mon  ami,  you  will  succeed. 
Besides,  I  will  burn  candles  for  you  in  St.  Anthony's 
chapel." 

"Yes,  we  shall  make  a  move  early  in  September," 
he  replied,  grave  and  thoughtful.  "The  public 
frame  of  mind  is  favourable.  We  have  the  good 
wishes  and  encouragement  of  the  people.  Oh,  it 
is  not  sympathy  we  lack." 

She  imprudently  inquired  what  they  did  lack. 


130  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"What  we  lack,  or  at  any  rate  might  lack,  if 
things  were  not  settled  quickly,  is  the  sinews  of 
war — money,  deuce  take  it!  We  get  a  good  deal, 
of  course,  but  we  shall  need  so  much.  Three  ladies 
in  the  best  set  gave  us  three  hundred  thousand 
francs.  Monseigneur  was  much  impressed  by  a  gen- 
erosity so  truly  French.  Do  you  not  think  that 
there  is  something  charming,  exquisite,  fragrant  of 
the  old  France,  the  old  aristocratic  society,  in  the 
offering  of  these  women  to  royalty?" 

Madame  de  Bonmont,  dressing  in  front  of  the 
glass,  did  not  appear  to  have  heard  the  question. 

He  explained  his  meaning: 

"But  they  are  trickling,  trickling  away,  the  three 
hundred  thousand  francs  presented  by  those  white 
hands.  Monseigneur  told  us,  with  chivalrous  grace : 
'Spend  the  money  to  the  last  sou.'  If  some  dainty 
little  hand  were  to  bring  us  another  hundred 
thousand  francs,  how  we  should  bless  it !  It  would 
have  helped  to  save  France.  There  is  still  a  place 
to  be  filled  among  the  amazons  of  the  cheque,  in 
the  squadron  of  fair  Leaguers.  I  can  safely  promise 
to  the  fourth  donor  an  autograph  letter  from  the 
Prince  and,  what  is  more,  a  place  at  Court  next 
winter." 

But  the  Baronne,  feeling  that  he  was  trying  to 
bleed  her,  received  a  painful  impression.  This  was 
not  the  first  time,  but  she  could  not  get  used  to  it. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  131 

Besides,  she  did  not  see  that  it  would  be  in  any  way 
useful  to  give  her  money  for  the  restoration  of  the 
monarchy.  Of  course  she  liked  the  handsome  young 
Prince  with  his  rosy  face  and  his  fair  silky  beard. 
She  wished  ardently  for  his  return;  she  was  impa- 
tient to  witness  his  entry  into  Paris,  and  his  corona- 
tion. But,  she  argued,  with  his  income  of  two 
millions  he  had  no  need  of  anything  but  love,  good 
wishes  and  flowers.  When  Joseph  Lacrisse  had  fin- 
ished what  he  had  to  say  the  silence  became  painful. 

"Mon  Dieuf  how  awful  my  hair  looks  I"  she 
muttered  to  the  mirror. 

When  she  had  finished  dressing,  she  took  from 
her  little  purse  a  piece  of  four-leaved  clover,  en- 
closed in  a  glass  medallion  framed  in  silver  gilt,  and 
handing  it  to  him  whispered  sentimentally: 

"It  will  bring  you  luck.  Promise  to  keep  it 
always." 

In  order  to  divert  the  attention  of  any  police- 
agents  that  might  be  on  his  track,  Joseph  Lacrisse 
was  the  first  to  leave  the  blue  flat.  As  he  reached 
the  landing  he  muttered  with  a  scowl : 

"She's  a  regular  Wallstein !  It  was  no  good  her 
being  baptized.  What  is  bred  in  the  bone  will  come 
out  in  the  flesh  I" 


CHAPTER  XIII 

N  the  warm  luminous  decline  of  day, 
the  Luxembourg  garden  was  as 
though  bathed  in  a  golden  dust. 
Monsieur  Bergeret  sat  on  the  terrace 
between  Messieurs  Denis  and  Goubin, 
at  the  foot  of  the  statue  of  Marguerite  d'Angouleme. 
"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "I  should  like  to  read  you 
an  article  that  appeared  this  morning  in  the  Figaro. 
I  shall  not  name  the  author,  for  I  think  you  will 
recognize  him  for  yourselves.  Since  chance  will 
have  it  so,  it  gives  me  all  the  more  pleasure  to  read 
it  in  the  presence  of  this  lovable  woman  who  was 
a  lover  of  sound  doctrine  and  of  open-hearted  men, 
and  who,  because  she  was  learned,  sincere,  tolerant 
and  pitiful,  and  sought  to  deprive  the  torturers  of 
their  victims,  raised  against  her  all  the  monasteries 
and  all  the  universities.  They  used  even  to  incite 
the  young  scapegraces  of  the  College  of  Navarre  to 
insult  her,  and  had  she  not  been  sister  to  the  King 
of  France  they  would  have  sewed  her  up  in  a  sack 
and  thrown  her  into  the  Seine.  She  was  a  gentle 
soul,  profound  yet  cheerful.  I  cannot  say  whether 

132 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  133 

when  alive  she  had  the  coquettish  and  mischievous 
expression  which  she  wears  in  this  statue  by  a  little- 
known  sculptor,  by  name  Lescorne,  but  she  certainly 
has  not  in  the  hard,  sincere  pencil  drawings  of 
Clouet's  pupils,  who  have  left  us  her  portrait.  I 
would  rather  believe  that  her  smile  was  often  veiled 
in  sadness,  and  that  her  lips  drooped  sorrowfully 
when  she  said:  'I  have  borne  more  than  my  share 
of  the  burden  common  to  all  persons  of  high  estate.' 
In  her  private  life  she  was  anything  but  happy,  and 
all  around  her  she  saw  the  wicked  triumph  amid  the 
applause  of  the  cowardly  and  ignorant.  I  believe 
that  in  the  days  when  her  ears  were  not  of  marble 
she  would  have  listened  with  sympathy  to  what  I 
am  about  to  read." 

And  Monsieur  Bergeret,  having  unfolded  his 
paper,  read  as  follows : 

"THE  GOVERNMENT. 

"To  see  just  where  one  stood  in  the  Affair  one 
needed,  at  the  outset,  some  application,  and  a  certain 
amount  of  critical  method,  together  with  sufficient 
leisure  to  apply  it.  So  that  we  see  that  the  light  first 
dawned  upon  those  who,  by  the  quality  of  their 
minds  and  the  nature  of  their  occupation,  were  bet- 
ter adapted  than  others  to  the  solution  of  difficult 
problems.  After  this,  all  that  was  needed  was  com- 
mon sense  and  close  attention.  Common  sense  is 
enough  to-day. 


i34  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"We  must  not  be  surprised  that  the  general  pub- 
lic has  held  out  so  long  against  the  obvious  truth. 
Nothing  should  surprise  us.  There  are  reasons  for 
everything,  and  it  is  our  place  to  discover  these  rea- 
sons. In  the  present  instance  little  reflection  is 
needed  in  order  to  perceive  that  the  public  has  been 
utterly  and  absolutely  deceived,  and  its  touching 
credulity  abused.  The  Press  has  largely  helped  the 
lie  to  succeed.  Most  of  the  newspapers  have  hur- 
ried to  the  assistance  of  the  forgers,  and  have  pub- 
lished forged  or  falsified  documents,  insults  and  lies. 
But  we  must  admit  that  in  most  cases  this  was  done 
to  please  their  public  and  respond  to  the  private 
opinions  of  their  readers.  It  is  certain  that  the 
battle  against  truth  was  in  the  first  place  based  on 
the  popular  instinct. 

"The  crowd,  by  which  I  mean  the  crowd  of  peo- 
ple who  are  incapable  of  thinking  for  themselves, 
did  not  understand;  they  could  not  understand. 
Their  idea  of  the  Army  was  a  simple  one.  For 
them  the  Army  was  parade,  march  past,  review, 
manoeuvres,  uniforms,  high  boots,  spurs,  epaulets, 
guns  and  flags.  It  also  meant  conscription,  with 
beribboned  caps,  litres  of  cheap  wine,  barracks,  drill, 
the  mess,  the  guard-room  and  the  canteen.  It 
meant,  again,  a  national  trade  in  pictures,  the  bril- 
liant little  sketches  of  our  military  painters  with  their 
spotless  uniforms  and  nice  tidy  battle  scenes.  And 
finally  it  was  a  symbol  of  strength  and  security,  of 
honour  and  glory.  The  officers  who  rode  past  on 
horseback  with  their  swords  in  their  hands,  amid 
the  glitter  of  gold  and  steel,  to  the  sound  of  music 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  135 

and  the  roll  of  drums,  how  was  it  possible  to  believe 
that  they  would  shortly  be  bending  over  a  table, 
behind  locked  doors,  tele  a  tele  with  anxious  agents 
from  the  prefecture  of  police,  handling  the  eraser 
and  the  india-rubber,  handling  the  gum  brush  or 
sprinkling  pounce,  scratching  out  or  putting  in  a 
name  in  a  document,  forging  handwritings,  to  ruin 
an  innocent  man;  or  thinking  out  ridiculous  disguises 
for  mysterious  appointments  with  the  traitor  they 
had  to  save? 

"What  made  these  crimes  seem  impossible  to  the 
public  mind  was  that  they  did  not  smack  of  the  open 
air,  the  early  morning  march,  the  field  of  manoeuvres 
and  the  battle-field.  They  were  all  too  stuffy,  they 
savoured  too  much  of  the  office;  there  was  nothing 
military  about  them.  And,  in  truth,  all  the  practices 
which  were  resorted  to  in  order  to  conceal  the 
judicial  error  of  1895,  all  those  infamous  documents, 
all  that  vile  and  rascally  trickery,  reeks  of  the  office, 
and  a  dirty  office  at  that.  All  that  the  four  green- 
papered  walls,  the  china  inkstand  surrounded  with 
sponge,  the  boxwood  paper-knife,  the  water-bottle 
on  the  mantelpiece,  the  pigeon-holes,  and  the  leather- 
seated  chair  could  suggest  in  the  way  of  ridiculous 
imaginings  and  evil  thoughts  to  these  stay-at-homes, 
these  poor  'sitters'  as  a  poet  has  called  them,  to 
vain,  poor  lazy,  plotting  scribblers,  idle  even  in  the 
accomplishment  of  their  idle  task,  jealous  of  one 
another  and  proud  of  their  occupation;  all  the 
equivocal,  false,  treacherous  and  stupid  things  that 
can  be  done  with  pen  and  paper  in  the  service  of 
wickedness  and  folly,  came  out  of  a  corner  of  that 


136  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

building  on  which  are  sculptured  battle  trophies  and 
smoking  hand-grenades. 

"The  jobs  perpetrated  in  these  offices  during  the 
space  of  four  years,  for  the  purpose  of  burdening 
a  condemned  prisoner  with  evidence  which  they  had 
neglected  to  produce  before  his  condemnation,  and 
of  acquitting  the  guilty  man  whom  all  accused,  who 
inculpated  himself,  are  so  monstrous  in  their  con- 
ception as  to  baffle  the  moderate  mind  of  a  French- 
man, and  they  exhale  a  spirit  of  tragic  buffoonery 
most  displeasing  in  a  country  whose  literature  abhors 
the  confusion  of  styles.  These  documents  and  in- 
quiries must  be  studied  minutely  before  one  can 
admit  the  reality  of  all  these  plots  and  intrigues, 
these  prodigiously  audacious  tricks  and  inept  manoeu- 
vres, and  I  can  well  understand  that  the  careless,  ill- 
informed  public  refused  to  believe  in  them  even  after 
they  were  divulged. 

"And  yet  it  is  very  true  that  at  the  end  of  a 
corridor  in  a  Ministerial  building,  on  thirty  square 
yards  of  waxed  flooring,  a  few  military  bureaucrats, 
some  of  them  idle  and  crafty,  others  excited  and 
unruly,  betrayed  justice  and  deceived  a  great  people 
by  their  wicked,  fraudulent  documents.  But  if  this 
Affair,  which  was  above  all  the  Affair  of  Mercier 
and  the  bureaux,  has  revealed  a  villainous  morality, 
it  has  also  raised  up  some  noble  characters. 

"For  even  in  this  very  office  there  was  one  man 
unlike  the  rest.  His  mind  was  broad,  shrewd  and 
lucid,  his  character  noble,  his  heart  patient,  abun- 
dantly human  and  invincibly  gentle.  He  was  rightly 
looked  upon  as  one  of  the  most  intelligent 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  137 

in  the  Army.  And  although  the  singularity  of  a 
spirit  of  too  rare  an  essence  might  have  been  a 
stumbling-block,  he  had  been  the  first  among  the 
officers  of  his  age  to  be  appointed  lieutenant-colonel, 
and  everything  foretold  for  him  the  most  brilliant 
future  in  the  Army.  His  friends  understood  his 
rather  quizzical  indulgence  and  his  genuine  kindli- 
ness. They  knew  him  to  be  endowed  with  an  un- 
usual sense  of  beauty,  apt  to  feel  keenly  all  that  was 
best  in  music  and  literature,  and  to  live  in  the 
ethereal  world  of  ideas.  Like  all  men  whose  inner 
life  is  deep  and  meditative,  he  developed  his  great 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties  in  solitude.  This 
tendency  to  retire  within  himself,  together  with  his 
natural  simplicity,  his  spirit  of  renunciation  and 
sacrifice,  and  the  beautiful  sincerity  which  sometimes 
seems  to  grace  the  minds  of  those  most  conscious 
of  universal  suffering  and  evil,  combined  to  form 
in  him  the  type  of  soldier  known  or  dreamed  of  by 
Alfred  de  Vigny,  the  quiet  hero  of  daily  life  who 
imparts  some  of  his  own  nobility  to  the  humblest 
tasks  which  he  undertakes,  and  to  whom  the  accom- 
plishment of  routine  duty  is  the  familiar  poetry  of 
life. 

"This  officer,  who  was  appointed  to  the  second 
committee  of  investigation,  found  one  day  that 
Dreyfus  had  been  condemned  for  the  crime  of 
Esterhazy.  He  informed  his  superior  officers. 
They  tried,  quietly  at  first,  and  then  by  threats,  to 
put  a  stop  to  his  investigations,  which,  in  proving 
the  innocence  of  Dreyfus,  would  reveal  their  own 
crimes  and  errors.  He  knew  that  it  meant  ruin  if 


138  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

he  persevered.  He  persevered.  With  quiet  reflec- 
tion, slow  and  sure,  with  calm  courage,  he  continued 
his  work  of  justice.  He  was  removed.  He  was 
sent  to  Gabes,  and  to  the  Tripoli  frontier,  on  some 
wicked  pretext,  for  no  other  reason  than  to  get  him 
murdered  by  the  Arab  brigands. 

"Having  failed  to  kill  him,  they  set  to  work  to 
dishonour  him,  to  ruin  him  by  the  profusion  of  their 
slanders.  With  treacherous  promises  they  tried  to 
keep  him  from  speaking  at  the  Zola  trial.  He  spoke, 
with  the  unruffled  calm  of  the  just  man,  with  the 
serenity  of  a  mind  that  knew  neither  fear  nor  desire. 
There  was  no  exaggeration  in  his  speech  and  no 
weakness;  only  the  words  of  a  man  who  was  doing 
his  duty  on  that  day  as  on  all  other  days,  without 
thinking  for  a  moment  that  there  was  a  singular 
courage  in  the  act.  Neither  threats  nor  persecution 
caused  him  to  hesitate  for  a  moment. 

"Many  have  said  that  in  order  to  accomplish  the 
task  which  he  had  set  himself,  to  establish  the  inno- 
cence of  a  Jew  and  the  crime  of  a  Christian,  he  had 
to  get  the  better  of  clerical  prejudices,  to  conquer 
a  hatred  of  the  Jews  ingrained  in  him  since  his  early 
youth,  when  he  was  growing  to  manhood  in  that 
land  of  Alsace  and  of  France  which  gave  him  to  the 
Army  and  the  country.  Those  who  know  him  best 
know  that  he  heeded  nothing  of  the  kind,  that  he 
was  incapable  of  any  sort  of  fanaticism,  that  his 
ideals  were  never  those  of  a  sectary,  that  his  great 
intelligence  placed  him  above  petty  hatreds  and 
partialities;  in  short,  that  his  soul  was  free. 

"This  inward  liberty,  the  most  precious  of  all 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  139 

liberties,  his  persecutors  could  not  take  from  him. 
In  the  prison  to  which  they  sent  him,  whose  stones, 
in  the  words  of  Fernand  Gregh,  formed  the  pedestal 
of  his  statue,  he  was  free,  freer  than  they.  His 
wide  reading,  his  calm,  benevolent  speech,  and  his 
letters,  full  of  serene  and  noble  thoughts,  bear 
witness  (I  know)  to  the  freedom  of  his  soul.  Those 
others,  his  persecutors  and  calumniators,  were  the 
real  prisoners — the  prisoners  of  their  lies  and  their 
crimes.  People  who  saw  him  behind  the  bolts  and 
bars  testify  to  the  fact  that  he  was  quiet,  smiling 
and  indulgent.  When  the  great  mental  revolution 
took  place  during  which  those  public  meetings  that 
united  thousands  of  scholars,  students  and  working- 
men  were  organized,  while  petitions  covered  with 
signatures  demanded  an  end  to  the  scandal  of  his 
imprisonment,  he  said  to  Louis  Havet,  who  went  to 
see  him:  'I  am  much  more  easy  in  my  mind  than 
you.'  I  think,  however,  that  he  suffered.  I  think 
he  suffered  intensely  at  the  thought  of  so  much 
baseness  and  treachery,  of  so  monstrous  an  injustice, 
of  that  epidemic  of  crime  and  madness,  of  the 
execrable  fury  of  the  men  who  were  deceiving  the 
crowd,  and  the  pardonable  fury  of  the  ignorant 
mob.  He,  too,  saw  the  aged  woman  bearing  with 
saintly  simplicity  the  faggots  for  the  torture  of  the 
innocent.  How  could  he  do  other  than  suffer,  when 
he  found  that  men  were  worse  than  his  philosophy 
had  pictured  them,  less  courageous  and  less  intelli- 
gent when  put  to  the  test  than  the  psychologists 
imagined  in  their  quiet  studies?  I  believe  he 
suffered  inwardly  in  the  secret  places  of  his  silent 


140  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

soul,  veiled  as  by  the  Stoic's  cloak.  But  I  should 
be  ashamed  to  pity  him.  I  should  be  too  much 
afraid  lest  that  murmur  of  human  pity  should  reach 
his  ears  and  offend  the  rightful  pride  of  his  heart. 
Far  from  pitying  him,  rather  will  I  say  that  he  was 
happy;  happy  because  on  the  sudden  day  of  trial  he 
was  ready  and  without  weakness;  happy  because 
unforeseen  circumstances  permitted  him  to  give  to 
the  full  measure  of  his  great  soul;  happy  that  he 
proved  himself  to  be  an  honest  man,  heroic  in  his 
simplicity;  happy  because  he  stands  for  ever  as  an 
example  to  soldiers  and  to  citizens.  Pity  is  for  those 
who  have  failed.  To  Colonel  Picquart  we  can  offer 
nothing  less  than  admiration." 

Having  come  to  an  end  of  his  reading,  Monsieur 
Bergeret  refolded  his  newspaper.  The  statue  of 
Marguerite  of  Navarre  was  all  rosy-pink.  In  the 
west  the  harshly  brilliant  sky  clothed  itself  as  with 
a  suit  of  mail,  a  network  of  clouds  like  bars  of  red 
copper. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

HAT  same  evening  Monsieur  Berg- 
eret  received  in  his  study  a  visit  from 
his  colleague  Jumage. 

Alphonse  Jumage  and  Lucien 
Bergeret  were  born  on  the  same  day, 
at  the  same  hour,  and  were  the  children  of  two  girl 
friends  to  whom,  from  that  time,  they  became  an 
inexhaustible  source  of  conversation.  They  had 
grown  up  together.  Lucien  never  troubled  his  head 
in  any  way  concerning  their  simultaneous  entry  into 
the  world,  but  Alphonse  was  more  mindful  of  the 
fact,  and  dwelt  upon  it  with  some  emphasis.  He 
formed  a  mental  habit  of  comparing  the  course  of 
their  two  lives,  which  had  started  simultaneously, 
and  he  gradually  persuaded  himself  that  it  was  only 
just,  equitable  and  salutary  that  their  progress  in  life 
should  be  equal. 

He  took  a  great  interest  in  the  development  of 
their  twin  careers,  both  of  which  were  devoted  to 
teaching,  and,  judging  his  own  fortune  by  another's, 
he  created  for  himself  continual  and  futile  anxieties 
which  obscured  the  natural  clearness  of  his  vision. 

141 


142  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

The  fact  that  Monsieur  Bergeret  was  a  professor  at 
the  University,  while  he  himself  taught  grammar  in 
a  suburban  lycee  was  not,  to  his  mind,  in  conformity 
with  the  idea  of  divine  justice  engraven  upon  his 
heart.  He  was  too  fair-minded  a  man  to  bear  a 
grudge  against  his  friend;  but  when  the  latter  was 
appointed  lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne  Jumage  felt  it 
keenly. 

A  curious  effect  of  this  comparative  study  of  their 
two  lives  was  that  Jumage  formed  an  inveterate 
habit  of  thinking  and  acting,  on  every  possible 
occasion,  in  a  manner  diametrically  opposed  to 
Monsieur  Bergeret's  way  of  thinking  and  acting; 
not  that  he  had  not  a  sincere  and  upright  character, 
but  he  could  not  help  suspecting  that  some  malign 
influence  was  at  work  to  ensure  the  success  of  careers 
which  were  of  greater  importance  and  merit  than 
his  own,  and  were  therefore  unrighteous.  And  thus, 
when  he  found  that  the  professor  was  in  favour  of 
the  Revision,  he  at  once  joined  the  ranks  of  the 
Nationals,  because  he  conceived  all  manner  of  per- 
fectly genuine  reasons  for  doing  so,  and  also  because 
he  had  to  be  the  antithesis,  in  a  sense,  the  inverted 
self,  of  Monsieur  Bergeret.  He  entered  his  name 
as  a  member  of  the  League  of  the  Agitation  fran- 
gaise,  and  even  made  speeches  at  its  meetings.  In 
the  same  way  he  opposed  his  friend  on  every  topic 
under  the  sun,  from  systems  of  economical  heating 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  143 

to  the  rules  of  Latin  Grammar,  and  as,  after  all, 
Monsieur  Bergeret  was  not  always  wrong,  Jumage 
was  not  always  right. 

This  contrariety,  which  with  years  had  assumed 
the  exactitude  of  a  rational  system,  did  not  in  any 
way  interfere  with  their  life-long  friendship.  Jumage 
was  really  concerned  at  the  misfortunes  that  dogged 
Bergeret  in  the  course  of  his  sometimes  troubled 
career.  He  went  to  see  him  every  time  he  heard  of 
a  fresh  calamity.  He  was  no  fair-weather  friend. 

On  this  particular  occasion,  he  came  to  his  old 
friend  with  the  worried  and  bewildered  expression, 
the  look  of  mingled  pain  and  pleasure,  that  Lucien 
knew  so  well. 

"You  are  quite  well,  Lucien?  I'm  not  in  your 
way,  am  I?" 

"No.  I  was  reading  the  story  of  the  porter  and 
the  young  girls  in  The  Arabian  Nights,  newly  trans- 
lated by  Dr.  Mardrus.  It  is  a  literal  translation  and 
very  different  from  The  Arabian  Nights  of  our  old 
friend  Galland." 

"I  came  to  see  you,"  said  Jumage,  "because  I 
wanted  to  speak  to  you  about  something.  But  it's 
of  no  consequence.  So  you  were  reading  The 
Arabian  Nights?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "and  for  the 
first  time  too.  For  the  worthy  Galland  gives  one 
no  idea  of  the  real  thing.  He  is  an  excellent  story 


144  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

teller  who  has  carefully  corrected  the  morals  of  the 
Arabs.  His  Scheherazada,  like  Coypel's  Esther, 
has  her  value ;  but  here  we  have  Arabia  with  all  its 
perfumes." 

"I've  brought  you  an  article  to  read,"  continued 
Jumage.  "But,  as  I  said  before,  it's  of  no  conse- 
quence." 

And  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a  newspaper  which 
Monsieur  Bergeret  slowly  extended  his  hand  to  take. 
Jumage  replaced  it  in  his  pocket.  Monsieur  Berg- 
eret's  hand  dropped  to  his  side;  then,  with  fingers 
that  trembled  slightly,  Jumage  spread  the  paper  on 
the  table. 

"Again,  I  repeat,  it's  of  no  importance,  but  I 
thought  it  better — perhaps  it's  better  for  you  to 
know — you  have  enemies,  many  enemies." 

"Flatterer!"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret. 

And  picking  up  the  paper  he  read  the  following 
lines  marked  in  blue  pencil: 

"A  common  usher  and  a  Dreyfussard,  the  in- 
tellectual Bergeret,  who  has  been  stagnating  in  the 
provinces,  has  just  been  appointed  lecturer  at  the 
Sorbonne.  The  students  of  the  faculty  of  letters 
have  lodged  an  energetic  protest  against  the  ap- 
pointment of  this  anti-French  Protestant,  and  it  does 
not  surprise  us  to  hear  that  many  of  them  have 
decided  to  greet  as  he  deserves,  with  howls  of 
execration,  the  dirty  German  Jew  whom  the  Min- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  145 

ister  of  Treason  has  had  the  impudence  to  foist  upon 
them  as  a  teacher." 

And  when  Monsieur  Bergeret  had  finished  read- 
ing, Jumage  said  eagerly: 

"Don't  read  it,  it's  not  worth  it.    It's  so  trivial." 

"Trivial,  I  admit,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret. 
"Yet  you  must  not  deprive  me  of  this  token,  obscure 
and  insufficient,  but  at  the  same  time  truthful  and 
creditable,  of  what  I  did  during  a  difficult  period, 
I  didn't  do  a  great  deal;  but  I  ran  some  risks. 
Stapfer,  the  Dean,  was  suspended  for  having  spoken 
of  justice  during  a  funeral  oration,  in  the  days  when 
Monsieur  Bourgeois  was  Grand  Master  of  the 
University.  And  we  have  known  worse  times  than 
those  for  which  Monsieur  Bourgeois  was  respon- 
sible. If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  generous  firmness  of 
my  chiefs  I  should  have  been  turned  out  of  the 
University  by  an  unwise  Minister.  I  didn't  think 
about  it  then,  but  I  can  think  of  it  now,  and  claim 
the  reward  of  my  actions.  Now  tell  me  what  more 
worthy,  what  nobler,  what  more  finely  austere  re- 
ward could  I  attain  than  the  insults  of  the  enemies 
of  justice?  I  could  wish  that  the  writer  who,  despite 
himself,  has  given  me  this  testimonial,  had  expressed 
his  thought  in  a  more  memorable  fashion.  But  that 
would  be  asking  too  much." 

Having  thus  spoken,  Monsieur  Bergeret  placed 
the  blade  of  his  ivory  paper-knife  between  the  pages 


146  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

of  The  Arabian  Nights.  He  enjoyed  cutting  the 
pages  of  his  books,  being  a  wise  man  who  suited  his 
pleasures  to  his  condition.  The  austere  Jumage 
envied  him  this  innocent  pastime.  He  pulled  his 
sleeve. 

"Listen,  Lucien.  I  share  none  of  your  opinions 
with  regard  to  the  Affair.  I  have  blamed  and  still 
blame  your  conduct.  I  fear  it  may  have  the  most 
deplorable  results  upon  your  future.  No  true 
Frenchman  will  ever  find  it  in  his  heart  to  forgive 
you.  I  should  like  to  say,  however,  that  I  most 
forcibly  disapprove  of  the  style  of  controversy  em- 
ployed against  you  by  certain  newspapers.  I  con- 
demn them.  You  believe  that,  do  you  not?" 

"Yes." 

After  a  moment's  silence,  Jumage  went  on: 

"You  see,  Lucien,  you  are  slandered  because  of 
your  position.  You  can  summon  your  slanderers 
before  a  jury.  But  I  don't  advise  you  to  do  so. 
They  would  be  acquitted." 

"That  is  most  probable,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret. 
"Unless  I  walk  into  court  in  a  plumed  hat,  a  sword 
at  my  side,  spurs  on  my  boots,  and  an  army  of  twenty 
thousand  paid  hooligans  at  my  heels.  Then  my 
plea  would  be  heard  by  judge  and  jury.  When 
Zola  was  found  guilty  by  the  jury  of  the  Seine  in 
respect  of  the  very  moderate  letter  which  he  ad- 
dressed to  a  President  of  the  Republic  who  was  ill- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  147 

prepared  to  read  it,  their  deliberations  took  place 
amid  bestial  cries,  hideous  threats,  and  unendurable 
clatter  of  ironmongery,  amid  all  the  phantoms  of 
error  and  untruth.  I  have  not  so  terrific  an  appara- 
tus at  my  disposal,  therefore  it  is  more  than  probable 
that  my  defamer  would  be  acquitted." 

"You  cannot,  however,  remain  indifferent  to 
insults.  What  do  you  intend  to  do?" 

"Nothing.  I  am  satisfied.  I  would  just  as  soon 
be  subjected  to  the  insults  of  the  Press  as  to  its 
praise.  Truth  has  been  served  in  the  newspapers 
by  her  enemies  as  well  as  by  her  friends.  When  a 
mere  handful  of  men,  mindful  of  the  honour  of 
France,  denounced  the  fraudulent  condemnation  of 
an  innocent  man,  the  Government  and  public  opinion 
treated  them  as  enemies.  But  they  spoke  out.  And 
by  their  speech  they  proved  themselves  the  stronger. 
You  know  how  fervently  the  majority  of  the  news- 
papers worked  against  them.  But  in  spite  of  them- 
selves they  were  serving  the  cause  of  truth,  and  by 
publishing  the  false  documents " 

"There  haven't  been  so  many  false  documents  as 
you  think,  Lucien." 

"They  made  it  possible  to  prove  their  falsity. 
Error  had  been  scattered  broadcast,  and  could  no 
longer  collect  her  scattered  forces,  and  finally  noth- 
ing was  left  save  that  which  had  sequence  and 
continuity.  Truth  has  a  faculty  of  linking  facts 


i48  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

together  which  error  does  not  possess.  It  formed, 
in  the  face  of  insult  and  impotent  hatred,  a  chain 
that  could  not  again  be  broken.  We  owe  the 
triumph  of  our  cause  to  the  liberty,  the  licence  of 
the  Press." 

"But  you  are  not  victorious,"  cried  Jumage. 
"Neither  are  we  defeated!  Quite  the  contrary! 
The  opinion  of  the  whole  country  is  against  you.  I 
regret  to  say  it,  but  you  and  your  friends  are  unani- 
mously execrated,  dishonoured,  spat  upon.  We 
defeated?  You  are  joking.  The  whole  of  France 
is  with  us." 

"And  you  are  defeated  from  within.  If  I  took 
appearances  into  consideration  I  might  think  you 
victorious,  and  despair  of  justice.  There  are 
criminals  who  go  unpunished.  Prevarication  and 
perjury  are  publicly  approved  as  praiseworthy 
actions.  I  have  no  hope  that  the  enemies  of  truth 
will  own  themselves  vanquished.  Such  an  effort  is 
possible  only  to  the  highest  type  of  mind. 

"There  is  very  little  change  in  the  general  state 
of  mind.  The  ignorance  of  the  public  is  still  almost 
complete.  There  have  been  none  of  those  sudden 
changes  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  the  crowd  which 
are  so  amazing  when  they  occur.  Nothing  striking 
or  even  noticeable  has  happened.  Nevertheless  the 
time  is  past  when  a  President  of  the  Republic  could 
degrade,  to  the  level  of  his  own  soul,  justice,  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  149 

honour  of  the  country,  and  the  alliances  of  the 
Republic,  the  power  of  whose  ministers  depended 
upon  their  understanding  with  the  enemies  of  the 
very  institutions  of  which  they  were  the  guardians. 
A  season  of  brutal  hypocrisy  when  contempt  for 
intelligence  and  hatred  of  justice  were  at  one  and 
the  same  time  a  popular  opinion  and  a  State  doctrine. 
A  time  when  those  in  power  upheld  the  rioters,  when 
it  was  a  crime  to  cry  'Five  la  Republiquef  Those 
days  are  already  remote,  as  though  they  had  sunk 
into  the  limbo  of  the  past  and  were  plunged  into  the 
darkness  of  the  age  of  barbarism. 

"They  may  return.  We  are  divided  from  them 
as  yet  by  nothing  tangible,  nothing  apparent  or 
definite.  They  have  faded  away  like  the  clouds  of 
the  error  which  created  them,  and  the  least  breath 
may  yet  rekindle  their  ashes.  But  even  if  everything 
were  to  conspire  to  strengthen  your  cause,  you  are 
none  the  less  irretrievably  lost.  You  are  conquered 
from  within,  and  that  is  the  irretrievable  defeat. 
When  you  are  conquered  from  without,  you  can 
continue  to  resist  and  hope  for  revenge.  Your  ruin 
is  within  you.  The  necessary  consequences  of  your 
crimes  and  your  errors  are  at  hand  in  spite  of  your 
efforts  to  prevent  them,  and  with  amazement  you 
see  the  beginning  of  your  downfall.  Unjust  and 
violent,  you  will  be  destroyed  by  your  own  injustice 
and  violence.  And  the  monstrous  party  of  unright- 


150  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

eousness,  hitherto  inviolable,  respected  and  feared, 
is  falling,  breaking  asunder  of  its  own  weight. 

"What  does  it  matter  then  if  legal  sanctions  are 
dilatory  or  lacking?  The  only  true  and  natural 
justice  is  contained  in  the  very  consequences  of  the 
act,  not  in  external  formulas,  which  are  often  narrow 
and  sometimes  arbitrary.  Why  complain  that  the 
greatest  culprits  evade  the  law  and  retain  their 
despicable  honours?  That  doesn't  matter  either, 
under  the  present  social  system,  any  more  than  it 
mattered,  in  the  days  of  the  earth's  infancy,  when 
the  great  saurians  of  the  primeval  oceans  were  dis- 
appearing to  make  way  for  creatures  more  beautiful 
and  of  happier  instincts,  that  there  still  remained 
stranded,  on  the  slime  of  the  beaches,  a  few  mon- 
strous survivors  of  a  doomed  race." 

•  •  •  •  • 

As  Jumage  reached  the  gate  of  the  Luxembourg 
after  his  visit  to  his  friend,  he  met  young  Goubin. 

"I've  just  been  to  see  Bergeret,"  he  said.  "I'm 
sorry  for  him ;  he  seems  very  cast-down  and  dejected. 
The  Affair  has  crushed  him." 


CHAPTER  XV 

T  the  offices  of  the  Executive  Com 
mittee  in  the  Rue  de  Berri,  Henri 
de  Brece,  Joseph  Lacrisse  and  Henri 
Leon  were  dealing  with  the  business 
of  the  day. 

'My  dear  President,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse  to 
Henri  de  Brece.  "I  want  you  to  find  a  prefecture 
for  a  good  Royalist.  I  am  sure  you  will  not  refuse 
when  I  have  told  you  of  my  candidate's  qualification. 
His  father,  Ferdinand  Dellion,  an  iron-master  at 
Valcombe,  is  in  every  way  deserving  of  the  King's 
favour.  He  is  most  careful  of  the  moral  and 
physical  well-being  of  his  workmen.  He  has  a 
dispensary  for  them,  and  he  sees  that  they  go  to 
Mass  on  Sundays  and  send  their  children  to  the 
church  schools,  and  that  they  vote  properly  and 
abstain  from  trade  unions.  He  is  opposed,  un- 
fortunately, by  the  deputy  Cothard  and  ill-supported 
by  the  sub-prefect  of  Valcombe.  His  son  Gustave 
is  one  of  the  most  active  and  energetic  members 
of  my  Departmental  Committee.  He  was  most 
vigorous  in  the  campaign  against  the  Jews  in  our 


152  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

city,  and  was  arrested  at  Auteuil  for  taking  part 
in  the  demonstration  against  Loubet.  You  simply 
cannot  refuse  a  prefecture  to  Gustave  Dellion,  my 
dear  President!" 

"A  prefecture,"  murmured  Brece,  turning  over 
his  register,  "a  prefecture?  We've  only  got  Gueret 
and  Draguignan  left.  Will  you  have  Gueret?" 

Joseph  Lacrisse  smiled  imperceptibly  as  he  re* 
plied: 

"My  dear  President,  Gustave  Dellion  is  my 
collaborator.  When  the  time  is  ripe  he  will  proceed 
under  my  orders  to  the  forcible  suppression  of 
Worms-Clavelin.  It  is  only  fair  that  he  should 
take  his  place." 

With  his  eyes  glued  to  the  register,  Henri  de 
Brece  declared  the  thing  to  be  impossible.  Worms- 
Clavelin's  successor  was  already  chosen.  Mon- 
seigneur  had  appointed  Jacques  de  Cadde,  one  of 
the  first  to  subscribe  to  the  Henry  subscription-lists. 

Lacrisse  objected  to  Jacques  de  Cadde,  saying 
that  he  was  a  stranger  to  the  department.  Henri 
de  Brece  retorted  that  one  did  not  dispute  the 
King's  orders,  and  the  discussion  was  growing  some- 
what heated  when  Henri  Leon,  astride  a  chair,  put 
out  his  hand  and  remarked  in  a  peremptory  tone : 

"Worms-Clavelin's  successor  will  be  neither 
Jacques  de  Cadde  nor  Gustave  Dellion.  It  will  be 
Worms-Clavelin." 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  153 

Lacrisse  and  Brece  protested. 

"It  will  be  Worms-Clavelin,"  repeated  Henri 
Leon.  "Worms-Clavelin,  who  will  not  await  your 
arrival  on  the  scenes  to  fly  the  royal  standards  from 
the  roof  of  the  prefecture,  and  whom  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  appointed  by  the  King  will  have 
notified  by  telephone  of  his  retention  at  the  head 
of  the  departmental  administration." 

"Worms-Clavelin  prefect  under  the  monarchy!" 
said  Brece  disdainfully.  "I  don't  seem  to  see  him." 

"It  would  be  a  shocking  thing,  of  course,"  replied 
Henri  Leon.  "But  if  the  Chevalier  de  Clavelin  is 
appointed  prefect  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said. 
Don't  let  us  have  any  illusions,  the  King  won't 
bestow  all  the  plums  on  us.  Ingratitude  is  the  first 
duty  of  a  sovereign,  and  no  Bourbon  has  ever  yet 
been  found  lacking  in  that  respect.  I  say  this  to  the 
praise  of  the  House  of  France. 

"Do  you  really  think  the  King  will  govern  with 
the  white  carnation,  the  cornflower  and  the  rose  of 
France,  and  take  his  ministers  from  the  Jockey  Club 
and  from  Puteaux,  or  make  Christiani  Grand  Master 
of  the  Ceremonies?  If  so,  you  are  vastly  mistaken. 
The  rose  of  France,  the  cornflower  and  the  white 
carnation  will  be  left  on  the  ground,  in  the  modest 
shade  beloved  of  the  violet.  Christiani  will  be  set 
at  liberty,  nothing  more.  People  will  look  askance 
at  him  for  staving  in  Loubet's  hat.  Of  course! 


154  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Once  deposed,  Loubet,  who  at  present  is  nothing 
but  a  low  Panamist,  will  be  a  predecessor  when  we 
have  replaced  him.  The  King  will  sit  in  his  arm- 
chair at  the  Auteuil  races  and  he  will  then  consider 
that  Christian!  created  a  regrettable  precedent  and 
will  bear  him  a  grudge  for  doing  so.  Even  we 
ourselves,  we  who  are  plotting  for  him,  will  become 
suspect;  conspirators  are  not  liked  at  Court.  I  am 
telling  you  this  to  save  you  from  bitter  disappoint- 
ment. The  secret  of  happiness  is  to  live  without 
illusions.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  if  my  services 
are  forgotten  or  despised,  I  shall  not  complain. 
Politics  isn't  a  matter  of  sentiment;  I  realize  only 
too  well  what  His  Majesty  will  be  forced  to  do  when 
we  have  set  him  upon  the  throne  of  his  fathers. 
Before  rewarding  gratuitous  devotion,  a  good  King 
pays  for  the  services  which  have  been  sold  to  him. 
Don't  make  any  mistake  about  that!  The  greatest 
honours  and  the  most  lucrative  positions  will  be 
given  to  the  Republicans.  The  trimmers  alone  will 
form  a  third  of  our  political  personnel,  and  will 
receive  their  pay  before  we  do.  And  that  is  only 
fair.  Gromance,  the  old  Chouan  who  went  over  to 
the  Republic  under  Meline,  explains  his  position 
very  clearly  when  he  tells  us:  'You  have  lost  me  a 
seat  in  the  Senate,  therefore  you  owe  me  one  in  the 
House  of  Peers.'  He'll  get  it,  and  after  all  he 
deserves  it.  But  the  reward  of  the  trimmers  will 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  155 

be  as  nothing  to  that  of  the  faithful  Republicans 
who  reserve  their  treachery  for  the  supreme  mo- 
ment. Those  are  they  who  will  get  the  portfolios 
and  gold-laced  coats,  the  titles  and  endowments.  Do 
you  know  where  to  look  for  our  Premier  and  half 
ibur  Peerage  at  the  present  moment?  Don't  look  for 
them  in  our  Royalist  Committees  where  we  hourly 
run  the  risk  of  being  arrested  like  so  many  thieves, 
nor  in  the  wandering  Court  of  our  young  and  hand- 
some Prince  in  his  cruel  exile.  You  will  find  them 
in  the  ante-chambers  of  the  Radical  ministers,  in  the 
drawing-rooms  of  the  Elysee  and  in  every  institution 
in  the  pay  of  the  Government.  Have  you  never 
heard  of  Talleyrand  and  Fouche?  Have  you  read 
no  history,  not  even  the  works  of  Monsieur  Imbert 
de  Saint- Amand?  It  was  not  an  emigre  but  a 
regicide  who  was  appointed  Minister  of  the  Police 
by  Louis  XVIII  in  1815.  Our  young  King  is 
certainly  not  so  clever  as  Louis  XVIII,  but  we  must 
not  think  him  devoid  of  intelligence.  That  would 
be  disrespectful  and,  perhaps,  too  severe.  When  he 
is  King  he  will  realize  the  necessities  of  the  situation. 
All  the  chiefs  of  the  Republican  party  who  are  not 
slain,  exiled,  transported  or  incorruptible  will  have 
to  be  regarded,  otherwise  they  will  oppose  him  in 
a  great  and  powerful  party,  and  Meline  himself  will 
become  a  savage  enemy.  And  since  I  have  men- 
tioned Meline,  Brece,  tell  me  yourself,  which  would 


156  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

be  most  advantageous  to  the  royal  cause — that  your 
father  should  preside  over  the  peers,  or  Meline,  Due 
de  Remiremont,  Prince  des  Voges,  with  the  Grand 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  Knight  of  the 
Lily  and  Saint  Louis?  There  can  be  no  possible 
doubt.  Due  Meline  would  bring  far  more  adherents 
to  the  crown  than  the  Due  de  Brece.  Must  I,  then, 
teach  you  the  A  B  C  of  restorations? 

"All  we  shall  get  will  be  the  titles  and  positions 
rejected  by  the  Republicans.  Our  gratuitous  devo- 
tion will  be  taken  for  granted.  They  will  have  no 
fear  of  displeasing  us ;  they  will  feel  assured  that  we 
shall  remain  inoffensive  malcontents.  It  will  never 
for  a  moment  enter  their  heads  that  we  might  form 
an  Opposition. 

"Well,  they  will  be  mistaken.  We  shall  be  obliged 
to  oppose  them,  and  we  shall  do  so.  It  will  be 
profitable,  and  it  won't  be  difficult.  Of  course  we 
shall  not  ally  ourselves  with  the  Republicans.  That 
would  be  in  execrable  taste,  and  our  loyalty  would 
forbid  such  a  thing.  We  cannot  be  less  Royalist 
than  the  King,  but  we  can  be  more  so.  Monsiegneur 
le  Due  d'Orleans  is  no  democrat,  we  must  do  him 
that  justice.  He  does  not  interest  himself  in  the 
conditions  of  the  working-classes.  He  dates  from 
before  the  Revolution.  Nevertheless,  although  he 
dines  in  knee-breeches  and  a  Breton  waistcoat,  with 
all  his  orders  round  his  neck,  he  will  turn  Liberal 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  157 

when  his  ministers  are  Liberals.  There  is  nothing 
to  prevent  us  from  becoming  'Ultras.'  We  shall  pull 
to  the  right  while  the  Republicans  pull  to  the  left; 
we  shall  become  dangerous  and  they  will  treat  us 
properly.  And  who  can  say  whether  the  'Ultras' 
will  not  be  the  means  of  saving  the  monarchy?  We 
have  already  an  incomparable  army  to-day  which  is 
more  religious  than  the  clergy.  We  have  an  incom- 
parable bourgeoisie,  anti-Semites  every  one  of  them, 
who  think  as  men  thought  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Louis  XVIII  was  not  so  fortunate.  If  they  will 
give  me  the  post  of  Minister  of  the  Interior,  with 
such  admirable  elements  as  these  I'll  guarantee  to 
make  the  monarchy  last  ten  years.  After  that  it  will 
be  the  turn  of  Socialism.  But  ten  years  is  a  good 
lease  of  life." 

Having  thus  spoken,  Henri  Leon  lit  a  cigar.  Still 
harping  on  the  same  theme,  Joseph  Lacrisse  begged 
Henri  de  Brece  to  see  if  he  had  not  a  good  pre- 
fecture to  dispose  of;  but  the  President  repeated 
as  before  that  he  had  nothing  but  Gueret  and 
Draguignan. 

"It  will  have  to  be  Draguignan  then,"  said  Joseph 
Lacrisse  with  a  sigh.  "Gustave  Dellion  will  not  be 
best  pleased,  but  I  must  make  him  see  it's  a  foot  in 
the  stirrup." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HE  Baronne  de  Bonmont  had  invited 
all  the  titled  landowners  and  the  big 
manufacturers  and  financiers  of  the 
district  to  a  charity  fete  which  she 
was  giving  on  the  29 th  of  the  month, 
in  the  famous  Chateau  de  Montil  which  Bernard  de 
Paves,  Grand  Master  of  Artillery  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XII,  had  built  in  1508  for  Nicolette  de 
Vaucelles,  his  fourth  wife,  and  which  had  been 
bought  by  Baron  Jules  after  the  French  loan  of 
1871.  She  had  been  tactful  enough  to  send  no 
invitation  to  the  Jewish  landowners,  although  she 
had  friends  and  relations  among  them.  After  the 
death  of  her  husband  she  was  baptized,  and  had 
now  been  five  years  naturalized.  She  was  wholly 
devoted  to  her  religion  and  country.  Like  her 
brother  Wallstein,  of  Vienna,  she  was  careful  to 
distinguish  herself  from  her  former  co-religionists 
by  a  sincere  anti-Semitism.  She  was  quite  un- 
ambitious, however,  and  her  natural  inclination  was 
for  the  pleasures  of  domestic  life.  She  would  have 
been  satisfied  with  a  modest  position  among  the 

158 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  159 

Christian  aristocracy  of  France,  if  her  son  had  not 
urged  her  to  "make  a  splash."  It  was  the  little 
Baron  Ernest  who  had  induced  her  to  get  in  with 
the  Breces;  it  was  he  who  had  inscribed  the  entire 
aristocracy  of  the  province  on  the  list  of  the  guests 
invited  to  the  projected  fete.  It  was  he  who 
brought  the  little  Duchesse  de  Mausac  to  Montil  to 
take  part  in  the  play.  As  she  was  given  to  remark- 
ing, she  was  of  good  enough  birth  to  sup  with  circus- 
riders  and  drink  with  grooms. 

The  programme  of  the  fete  included  a  perform- 
ance of  Joconde  by  society  amateurs,  a  fair  in  the 
park,  a  Venetian  fete  on  the  lake,  and  illuminations. 

It  was  already  the  lyth.  The  preparations  were 
proceeding  hurriedly,  amidst  extreme  confusion. 
The  little  company  of  actors  were  rehearsing  their 
play  in  the  long  Renaissance  gallery,  the  panels  of 
whose  ceiling  bore,  in  an  ingenious  variety  of  de- 
sign, the  peacock  of  Bernard  de  Paves  tied  by  the 
foot  to  the  lute  of  Nicolette  de  Vaucelles. 

Monsieur  Germaine  was  accompanying  the  singers 
on  the  piano,  while  in  the  park  the  carpenters  were 
putting  together  the  framework  of  the  booths  with 
great  blows  of  their  mallets.  Largilliere,  from  the 
Opera-Comique,  was  acting  as  stage  manager. 

"Your  turn,  Duchess." 

Monsieur  Germaine's  hands,   stripped   of   their 


160  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

rings,  excepting  one  that  remained  on  his  thumb, 
struck  a  chord. 

"La,  la." 

But,  taking  the  glass  handed  her  by  young  Bon- 
mont,  the  Duchess  cried: 

"Let  me  drink  my  cocktail  first." 

When  she  had  finished,  Largilliere  repeated : 

"Come,  Duchess." 

"Tout  me  seconde, 
Je  1'ai  prevu.  .  .  ." 

And  Monsieur  Germaine's  hands,  despoiled  of 
gold  and  gems  save  for  an  amethyst  on  the  thumb, 
once  more  struck  a  chord.  But  the  Duchess  did  not 
sing.  She  was  staring  with  interest  at  the  accom- 
panist. 

"My  dear  Germaine,  I  am  lost  in  admiration  I 
You  have  grown  a  bust  and  hips!  I  congratulate 
you!  You've  really  done  something!  While  as  for 
me — look!"  She  drew  her  hands  down  over  her 
cloth  costume.  "I've  got  rid  of  all  that!"  She 
made  a  half-turn.  "Nothing  left!  It's  all  gone! 
And  in  the  meantime  you've  been  growing  them! 
Now  that's  really  funny!  But  there's  no  harm  in 
it.  One  thing  makes  up  for  another." 

But  Rene  Chartier,  who  was  playing  Joconde, 
was  standing  motionless  with  his  neck  extended  like 
a  stove-pipe,  thinking  only  of  the  velvet  and  pearls 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  161 

of  his  voice,  which  was  deep  and  just  a  little  gloomy. 

He  grew  impatient  at  last,  remarking  coldly: 
"We  shall  never  be  in  time;  it's  deplorable!" 
"Let  us  start  from  the  quartette,"  said  Largilliere. 

"Tout  me  seconde, 
Je  1'ai  prevu; 
Pauvre  Joconde! 
II  est  vaincu." 

"Come  along,  Monsieur  Quatrebarbe." 

Monsieur  Gerard  Quatrebarbe  was  the  son  of  the 
diocesan  architect.  Since  he  had  broken  the  windows 
of  Mayer,  the  bootmaker,  who  was  supposed  to  be 
a  Jew,  he  was  received  everywhere  in  society.  He 
had  a  good  voice  but  he  missed  his  cues,  and  Rene 
Chartier  cast  furious  glances  at  him. 

"You  are  not  in  your  place,  Duchess,"  said 
Largilliere. 

"No,  I  dare  say  not  I"  replied  the  Duchess. 

Rene  Chartier  went  up  to  young  Bonmont  and 
whispered  in  his  ear: 

"For  goodness'  sake  don't  give  the  Duchess  any 
more  cocktails,  she  will  spoil  everything." 

Largilliere  was  grumbling  too;  the  choruses 
were  confused  and  unimpressive.  However,  they 
attacked  the  trio. 

"Monsieur  Lacrisse,  you  are  not  in  your  place." 

Joseph  Lacrisse  was  not  in  his  place,  and  it  is 
only  fair  to  say  that  it  was  not  his  fault.  Madame 


162  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

de  Bonmont  was  perpetually  enticing  him  into 
corners  and  murmuring  to  him : 

"Tell  me  you  love  me  still;  if  you  don't  still  love 
me  I  feel  I  shall  die!" 

She  also  asked  him  for  news  of  the  plot,  and  as 
the  latter  was  not  going  on  at  all  well  the  question 
irritated  him.  He  was  annoyed  with  her,  too, 
because  she  had  not  given  any  money  to  the  cause. 
He  strode  off  stiffly  to  join  the  chorus,  while  Rene 
Chartier  sang  as  though  he  meant  it: 

"Dans  un  delire  extreme 
On  veut  fuir  ce  qu'on  aime." 

Young  Bonmont  went  up  to  his  mother. 

"Don't  trust  Lacrisse,  mother." 

She  started.  Then,  in  a  tone  of  affected  in- 
difference : 

"What  do  you  mean?  He  is  very  serious,  more 
serious  than  is  usual  at  his  age.  He  is  occupied 
with  important  matters.  He " 

The  young  Baron  shrugged  his  strong  crooked 
shoulders. 

"I  tell  you,  don't  trust  him.  He  wants  to  come 
down  on  you  for  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  He 
asked  me  to  help  to  get  the  cheque  out  of  you.  But 
at  the  present  time  I  don't  see  that  it's  necessary.  I 
am  for  the  King,  but  a  hundred  thousand  francs  is 
a  large  sum." 

Rene  Chartier  sang: 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  163 

"On  devient  infidele, 
On  court  de  belle  en  belle." 

A  servant  brought  the  Baronne  a  letter.  It  was 
from  the  Breces,  who  enclosed  a  contribution  to  the 
charity  and  expressed  their  regrets  that  they  would 
not  be  able  to  attend  the  fete,  being  obliged  to  go 
away  before  the  29th. 

She  handed  the  letter  to  her  son,  who  smiled 
unpleasantly,  and  asked: 

"What  about  the  Courtrais?" 

"They  refused  yesterday,  and  Madame  Cartier 
de  Chalmot  as  well." 

"The  cats!" 

"We  shall  have  the  Terremondres  and  the 
Gromances." 

"The  deuce,  it's  part  of  their  business  to  come 
to  our  house." 

They  reviewed  the  situation;  it  was  unsatisfac- 
tory. Terremondre  had  not,  as  usual,  promised  to 
hunt  up  his  cousins  and  his  aunts  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  small  gentry.  The  big  manufacturers  them- 
selves seemed  to  be  hesitating  and  seeking  excuses 
for  not  coming.  Young  Bonmont  concluded: 

"It's  all  up  with  your  fete,  mother!  We  are  in 
quarantine,  that's  very  evident." 

These  words  grieved  the  gentle  Elisabeth.  Her 
beautiful  face,  always  adorned  by  a  loving  smile, 
seemed  overcast. 


1 64  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

At  the  other  end  of  the  room,  above  the  con- 
fused babel  of  sounds,  Largilliere's  voice  reiterated : 

"Not  like  that!  That's  not  the  way!  We  shall 
never  be  ready  in  time." 

"Do  you  hear?"  said  the  Baronne.  "He  says  we 
shall  not  be  ready  in  time.  Suppose  we  postpone 
the  fete  if  it's  not  going  to  be  a  success." 

"You  are  soft,  mother!  But  I'm  not  blaming 
you.  It's  your  nature.  You  are  a  forget-me-not 
and  will  always  remain  one.  I  am  a  fighting  man, 
a  strong  man.  I'm  pretty  well  played  out,  as  far 
as  my  health  goes,  but — I  shall  struggle  on  to 
the  end." 

"My  child!" 

"Don't  let  that  worry  you.  I'm  done  for,  but 
I  shall  struggle  on." 

Rene  Chartier's  voice  flowed  forth  like  a  limpid 
fountain : 

"On  pense,  on  pense  encore 
A  celle  qu'on  adore, 
Et  Ton  revient  toujours 
A  ses  premieres  a  ..." 

Suddenly  the  accompanist  ceased  playing  amidst  a 
great  uproar.  Monsieur  Germaine  was  chasing  the 
Duchess  who  was  running  off  with  his  rings.  She 
fled  into  the  monumental  fireplace,  where  on  the 
Angevin  slate  were  engraven  the  loves  of  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  165 

nymphs  and  the  metamorphoses  of  the  gods.  Then, 
pointing  to  a  little  pocket  in  her  corsage  she  said : 

"Here  are  your  rings,  my  old  Germaine.  Come 
and  fetch  them.  Look  here!  Here's  a  pair  of 
Louis  XIII  tongs!  You  can  use  them!" 

And  she  jangled  an  enormous  pair  of  tongs 
under  the  musician's  nose.  Rene  Chartier,  savagely 
rolling  his  eyes,  threw  down  his  score,  saying  that 
he  returned  his  part. 

"I  don't  believe  the  Luzancourts  are  coming 
either,"  said  the  Baronne,  with  a  sigh. 

"All  is  not  lost.  I  have  an  idea,"  said  the  little 
Baron.  "One  must  know  how  to  make  a  sacrifice 
when  it's  useful.  Say  nothing  to  Lacrisse  1" 

"Nothing  to  Lacrisse?" 

"Nothing  that  matters.    Leave  it  to  me." 

He  left  her  and  approached  the  noisy  chorus. 
To  the  Duchess,  who  asked  him  for  another  cocktail, 
he  gently  remarked: 

"Don't  bother  me." 

Then  he  sat  down  beside  Joseph  Lacrisse  who 
was  meditating  apart,  and  spoke  to  him  for  some 
time  in  a  low  voice.  His  manner  was  serious  and 
resolute. 

"It's  true  enough,"  he  said  to  the  secretary  of 
the  Committee  of  Young  Royalists.  "We  must 
overthrow  the  Republic  and  save  France.  And  to 
do  that  we  need  money.  My  mother  is  of  the 


166  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

same  opinion.  She  is  prepared  to  pay  fifty  thousand 
francs  to  the  King's  account  for  expenses  of 
propaganda." 

Joseph  Lacrisse  thanked  him  in  the  King's  name. 

"JMonseigneur,"  he  said,  "will  be  happy  to  learn 
that  your  mother  adds  her  patriotic  offering  to  that 
of  the  three  French  ladies  who  displayed  such 
chivalrous  generosity.  You  may  be  sure  that  he 
will  express  his  gratitude  in  a  letter  written  by  his 
own  hand." 

"It's  not  worth  speaking  of,"  said  young 
Bonmont. 

And  after  a  short  silence  he  added: 

"When  you  see  the  Breces  and  the  Courtrais, 
my  dear  Lacrisse,  you  might  tell  them  to  come  to 
our  little  fete." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

T  was  the  first  day  of  the  New  Year. 
Between  two  showers  Monsieur 
Bergeret  and  his  daughter  Pauline 
wended  their  way  along  the  streets 
still  covered  with  fresh  golden  mud, 
to  wish  the  compliments  of  the  season  to  a  maternal 
aunt  of  Monsieur  Bergeret's  who  still  survived,  but 
lived  alone,  if  living  it  could  be  called,  in  a  little 
Beguine's  cell  which  stood  in  a  kitchen  garden,  amid 
the  sound  of  convent  bells.  Pauline  was  happy 
without  a  reason  simply  because  holidays  such  as 
these,  which  marked  the  flight  of  time,  made  her 
the  more  conscious  of  the  delightful  progress  of 
her  young  life. 

On  this  solemn  day  Monsieur  Bergeret  still 
observed  his  customary  indulgence,  no  longer 
expecting  much  good  from  his  fellow-creatures  or 
from  life  itself,  but  knowing,  like  Monsieur  Fagon, 
that  one  must  forgive  nature  a  great  deal.  All 
along  the  road  beggars  of  every  description,  stand- 
ing upright  like  candlesticks,  or  spread  out  like 
temporary  altars,  formed  the  decorations  of  this 

167 


168  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

social  fete.  They  had  all  come  to  help  to  adorn  the 
bourgeois  quarters,  all  our  poor  unfortunates,  lame, 
halt  and  blind;  crooks,  tramps,  pickpockets,  malin- 
gerers, rogues,  and  hardened  ruffians.  Yielding, 
however,  to  the  general  tendency  to  obliterate  indi- 
vidual character,  and  to  conform  with  the  universal 
mediocrity  of  manners,  they  did  not  expose  to  view 
horrible  malformations  and  ghastly  sores  as  in  the 
days  of  the  great  Coe'sre.  They  did  not  bind  their 
mutilated  limbs  with  blood-stained  rags;  they  were 
modest  and  affected  only  endurable  infirmities.  One 
of  them  hobbled  nimbly  after  Monsieur  Bergeret 
for  some  considerable  distance.  Then  he  stopped 
and  took  up  his  position  once  more  like  a  lamp-post 
on  the  edge  of  the  pavement.  After  which  Mon- 
sieur Bergeret  remarked  to  his  daughter: 

"I  have  just  committed  a  wicked  action;  I  have 
given  alms.  In  giving  a  couple  of  sous  to  Monsieur 
Hobbler  I  tasted  the  shameful  joy  of  humiliating 
my  fellow-man.  I  was  a  partner  to  the  odious  pact 
that  gives  power  to  the  strong  and  leaves  the  weak 
in  their  weakness.  I  have  sealed  with  my  own  seal 
the  injustice  of  ages  and  contributed  my  share  to 
depriving  this  man  of  one  half  of  his  soul." 

"You've  done  all  that,  papa?"  asked  Pauline 
incredulously. 

"Almost  all  that,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret. 
"I  have  sold  fraternity  to  my  brother  Hobbler, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  169 

using  false  weights,  and  in  humiliating  him  I  have 
brought  humiliation  on  myself,  for  almsgiving 
degrades  both  him  who  gives  and  him  who  takes. 
I  have  done  wrong." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Pauline. 

"You  don't  think  so,"  replied  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  "because  you  have  no  philosophy  and  are 
incapable  of  tracing  from  an  apparently  innocent 
action  the  stupendous  consequences  which  it  bears 
within  itself.  This  fellow  induced  me  to  offer  him 
alms.  I  could  not  resist  the  importunity  of  his 
whining  appeal.  I  pitied  his  bare  thin  neck,  the 
knees  of  his  trousers,  which,  baggy  from  too  long 
wear,  bear  such  a  depressing  resemblance  to  the 
knees  of  a  camel,  and  his  feet,  on  which  his  shoes 
were  gaping  at  the  toes  like  a  couple  of  ducks. 
Seducer!  Dangerous  Hobbler!  Through  you  my 
sous  have  produced  their  little  share  of  baseness  and 
shame.  Through  you  I  have  created  with  ten 
centimes  a  little  ugliness  and  evil.  In  handing  you 
that  tiny  token  of  wealth  and  power,  I  have  ironi- 
cally made  you  a  capitalist,  and  invited  you,  an  un- 
honoured  guest,  to  the  banquet  of  society,  the  feast 
of  civilization.  And  as  I  did  it  I  felt  that  I  was  one 
of  the  mighty  of  this  world  as  compared  with  you, 
a  rich  man  compared  with  you,  my  gentle  Hobbler, 
exquisite  mendicant  and  flatterer.  I  rejoiced  and 
was  proud,  exulting  in  my  opulence  and  my  great- 


170  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

ness.  O  Hobbler,  live  for  ever  I  Pulcher  hymnus 
divitiarum  pauper  immortalis. 

"An  abominable  practice,  that  of  almsgiving!  A 
barbarous  pity,  that  of  charity!  An  ancient  error, 
that  of  the  well-to-do  who  give  a  penny  and  think 
they  are  performing  a  good  deed,  who  believe  they 
have  fulfilled  their  whole  duty  to  their  fellow-man 
by  means  of  the  most  miserable,  awkward,  ridicu- 
lous, senseless  and  mean  action  which  could  possibly 
be  committed  with  a  view  to  a  better  distribution 
of  wealth.  This  habit  of  almsgiving  is  contrary 
to  beneficence  and  abhorrent  to  charity." 

"Really?"  said  Pauline  good-humouredly. 

"Almsgiving,"  went  on  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "is 
no  more  to  be  compared  to  beneficence  than  a 
monkey's  grimace  to  the  smile  of  the  Joconda. 
Beneficence  is  as  ingenious  as  almsgiving  is  inept. 
It  is  vigilant,  and  proportions  its  efforts  to  the  need. 
That  is  precisely  what  I  did  not  do  with  regard  to 
brother  Hobbler.  The  very  name  of  beneficence 
evoked  the  most  beautiful  ideas  in  the  sensitive 
minds  of  the  century  of  the  philosophers.  It  used 
to  be  believed  that  the  name  was  first  created  by  the 
good  Abbe  de  Saint  Pierre,  but  it  is  older  still,  and 
can  be  found  in  the  old  Balzac.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  men  said  beneficence,  not  bienfaisance,  but  it 
is  the  same  word.  I  must  admit  that  I  do  not  find 
its  pristine  beauty  in  the  word  bienfaisance;  for  me 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  171 

it  has  been  spoiled  by  the  Pharisees  who  have  made 
too  free  a  use  of  it.  We  have  many  charitable 
institutions  in  our  country,  pawn-shops,  provident 
societies,  mutual  aid  and  insurance  societies.  Some 
of  these  are  useful  and  do  good  service.  But  their 
common  defect  is  that  they  proceed  to  aggravate 
the  very  social  iniquity  which  they  are  intended  to 
correct;  they  are  poisonous  remedies.  Universal 
beneficence  would  have  every  one  living  by  his  own 
labours  and  not  on  the  labours  of  others.  Every- 
thing but  fair  exchange  and  solidarity  is  vile  and 
shameful  and  unfruitful.  Human  charity  is  the 
co-operation  of  all  in  the  production  and  division 
of  the  fruits  of  labour. 

"Charity  is  justice;  it  is  love,  and  the  poor  are 
more  skilled  in  it  than  the  rich.  What  rich  man  has 
ever  practised  human  charity  as  fully  as  Epictetus 
or  Benoit  Malon?  True  charity  is  the  gift  of  each 
man's  work  to  all;  it  is  a  beautiful  kindness;  it  is 
the  harmonious  gesture  of  the  soul  which  bows  itself 
like  a  vase  of  precious  ointment,  pouring  forth  its 
benefits.  It  is  Michael  Angelo  painting  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  or  the  deputies  in  the  National  Assembly 
on  the  night  of  the  4th  of  August.  It  is  giving,  in 
all  its  happy  completeness;  it  is  money  poured  forth 
together  with  love  and  thought.  We  have  nothing 
that  belongs  to  us  alone  but  ourselves ;  we  truly  give 
only  when  we  give  our  work,  our  minds,  our  genius. 


172  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

And  this  splendid  offering  of  one's  whole  self  to 
all  men  enriches  the  giver  as  much  as  the  com- 
munity." 

"But,"  objected  Pauline,  "you  could  not  give  love 
and  beauty  to  Hobbler,  so  you  gave  him  what  was 
most  convenient  to  him." 

"It  is  true  that  Hobbler  has  become  a  mere 
animal.  Of  all  the  good  things  that  gratify  man,  he 
cares  only  for  alcohol.  I  conclude  as  much  from 
the  fact  that  as  he  came  towards  me  he  reeked  of 
brandy.  But,  such  as  he  is,  he  is  our  work.  Our 
pride  fathered  and  our  sin  mothered  him;  he  is  the 
evil  fruit  of  our  vices.  Every  man  in  the  world 
should  both  give  and  receive.  He  has  not  given 
enough,  doubtless  because  he  has  not  received 
enough." 

"He  may  be  lazy,"  said  Pauline.  "Mon  Dieu, 
how  can  we  do  away  with  poverty  and  weakness 
and  idleness !  Don't  you  believe  that  men  are  nat- 
urally good  and  that  it  is  society  that  makes  them 
wicked?" 

"No,  I  don't  believe  that  men  are  naturally  good," 
replied  Monsieur  Bergeret.  "What  I  see  is  that 
they  are  emerging  painfully  and  very  slowly  from 
their  primitive  barbarism,  and  that  with  great  effort 
they  are  organizing  a  justice  that  is  uncertain  and  a 
charity  that  is  precarious.  The  time  is  yet  far  dis- 
tant when  they  will  be  kind  and  gentle  to  one 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  173 

another.  The  time  is  yet  far  distant  when  they  will 
not  war  upon  one  another,  and  when  pictures  repre- 
senting battle  scenes  will  be  hidden  away  as  afford- 
ing an  immoral  and  shameful  spectacle.  I  believe 
that  the  reign  of  violence  will  last  a  long  time  yet, 
that  for  many  years  to  come  the  nations  will  rend 
one  another  asunder  for  trivial  reasons;  that  for 
many  years  to  come  the  people  of  the  same  country 
will  desperately  snatch  from  one  another  the  com- 
mon necessaries  of  life,  instead  of  equitably  dividing 
them.  But  I  also  believe  that  men  are  least  fero- 
cious when  they  are  least  wretched,  that  in  the  long 
run  the  progress  of  industry  will  produce  a  certain 
softening  of  manners.  A  botanist  has  assured  me 
that  if  a  hawthorn  be  transplanted  from  a  stony  to 
a  fruitful  soil  its  thorns  will  change  into  flowers." 

"There  you  are !  You  are  an  optimist,  papa ;  I 
knew  you  were!"  cried  Pauline,  stopping  short  for 
a  moment  in  the  middle  of  the  pavement  to  gaze  at 
her  father  with  her  dawn-grey  eyes,  full  of  gentle 
radiance  and  morning  coolness.  "You  are  an 
optimist.  You  are  working  with  a  cheerful  heart 
to  build  the  house  of  the  future.  That  is  good !  It 
is  a  fine  thing  to  build  the  New  Republic  with  men 
of  good  will." 

Monsieur  Bergeret  smiled  at  the  hopeful  words 
and  youthful  eyes. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "it  would  be  fine  to  lay  the  foun- 


174  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

dations  for  the  new  society,  where  each  man  would 
receive  the  just  price  of  his  labour." 

"It  will  happen,  won't  it?  But  when?"  asked 
Pauline  innocently. 

"Do  not  ask  me  to  prophesy,  my  child," 
answered  Monsieur  Bergeret  sadly  and  gently. 
"It  is  not  without  reason  that  the  ancients  consid- 
ered the  power  of  piercing  the  future  as  the  most 
fatal  gift  that  could  be  bestowed  upon  man.  If  it 
were  possible  for  us  to  see  what  is  to  come,  there 
would  be  nothing  left  for  us  but  to  die ;  or  perhaps 
we  should  fall  stricken  to  death  by  grief  or  terror. 
We  must  work  at  the  future  like  weavers  who  work 
at  their  tapestries  without  seeing  what  they 
accomplish." 

Thus  conversing,  the  father  and  daughter  pro- 
ceeded on  their  way.  In  front  of  the  square  in  the 
Rue  de  Sevres  they  met  a  solitary  beggar  standing 
motionless  on  the  pavement. 

"I've  no  more  change,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret. 
"Can  you  lend  me  a  couple  of  sous,  Pauline?  That 
outstretched  hand  bars  my  way.  If  it  were  in  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  it  would  still  bar  my  way. 
The  outstretched  hand  of  a  beggar  is  a  barrier  that 
I  cannot  pass.  It  is  a  weakness  that  I  cannot  over- 
come. Give  the  man  something.  It's  pardonable. 
We  must  not  let  ourselves  exaggerate  the  harm 
we  do." 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  175 

"Papa,  I'd  like  to  know  what  you  will  do  with 
Hobbler  in  your  Republic.  You  can't  imagine  he 
will  live  on  the  fruits  of  his  labour?" 

"My  daughter,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret,  "I 
think  he  will  consent  to  disappear.  He  is  already 
greatly  diminished.  Idleness  and  a  passion  for  rest 
are  urging  him  toward  final  elimination.  He  will 
return  to  oblivion  easily." 

"I  believe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  thoroughly 
enjoys  being  alive." 

"True,  he  has  his  joys.  No  doubt  he  delights  in 
swallowing  the  vitriol  of  the  dram-shop.  He  will 
disappear  altogether  with  the  last  drinking  house. 
There  will  be  no  publicans  in  my  Republic,  no  buyers 
and  no  sellers,  no  rich  and  no  poor,  and  each  will 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labours." 

"We  all  shall  be  happy,  papa." 

"No;  for  without  suffering  the  sacred  flame  of 
pity  which  makes  for  the  beauty  of  the  soul  would 
perish.  But  that  will  never  be.  Moral  and  physical 
evil,  incessantly  opposed,  will  share  with  happiness 
and  delight  the  empire  of  the  earth,  as  day  will 
follow  night.  Evil  is  necessary;  like  good,  it  has 
its  roots  deep  in  human  nature,  and  the  one  cannot 
perish  without  the  other.  Suffering  is  the  twin  sister 
of  joy,  and  as  they  breathe  upon  the  chords  of  our 
being  they  cause  them  to  vibrate  harmoniously.  The 
breath  of  happiness  alone  would  produce  but  a  dull 


176  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

and  tedious  sound,  like  silence.  But  the  artificial 
ills  arising  out  of  social  conditions  will  no  longer 
be  added  to  those  that  are  inevitable,  commonplace 
and  august,  which  arise  out  of  our  human  state. 
Men  will  no  longer  be  deformed  by  iniquitous 
labours  by  which  they  die  rather  than  live.  The 
slave  will  come  out  of  his  cell  and  the  factory  will 
no  longer  devour  the  bodies  of  millions. 

"And  I  anticipate  that  this  delivery  will  come 
from  machinery  itself;  the  engine  that  has  mangled 
so  many  men  will  come  gently  and  generously  to  the 
aid  of  suffering  human  flesh.  Cruel  and  hard  to 
begin  with,  machinery  will  become  kind,  favourable 
and  friendly.  How  can  it  change  its  soul?  Listen. 
The  spark  that  flashed  from  the  Leyden  jar,  the 
little  subtle  star  that  revealed  itself  in  the  last  cen- 
tury to  the  wonder-stricken  philosopher,  will  accom- 
plish this  miracle.  The  Unknown  which  ha^s  allowed 
itself  to  be  conquered  without  revealing  its  nature, 
the  mysterious  captive  force,  the  intangible,  seized 
by  human  hands,  the  obedient  lightning,  bottled  and 
distributed  over  the  innumerable  wires  that  cover 
the  face  of  the  earth  with  their  network — electricity 
will  yield  up  its  energy,  will  give  its  help  wherever 
it  is  needed:  in  the  houses,  the  rooms,  the  homes 
where  father,  mother,  and  children  will  henceforth 
never  be  separated.  This  is  no  dream.  The  cruel 
machine  that  crushes  soul  and  body  in  the  factory 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  177 

will  become  domestic,  intimate  and  familiar.  But 
it  is  useless,  quite  useless  for  the  pulleys,  wheels, 
connecting-rods,  cranks,  bearings  and  flywheels  to 
become  humanized  if  men  themselves  remain  iron- 
hearted. 

"We  are  waiting  for  and  appealing  to  a  yet  more 
wonderful  change.  The  day  will  come  when  the 
employer,  growing  in  moral  beauty,  will  become  a 
worker  among  the  liberated  workers;  when  there 
will  be  no  more  wages,  but  only  an  exchange  in  kind. 
The  great  manufacturers,  like  the  old  nobility,  whose 
place  they  have  taken  and  whom  they  are  imitating, 
will  go  through  their  4th  of  August.  They  will 
abandon  their  disputed  profits  and  threatened  privi- 
leges. They  will  become  generous  when  they  feel 
that  it  is  time  to  be  so. 

"What  says  the  employer  of  to-day?  That  he  is 
the  mind  and  the  thought,  and  that  without  him 
his  army  of  workers  would  be  like  a  body  deprived 
of  understanding.  Well,  if  that  be  true,  let  him 
content  himself  with  so  much  joy  and  honour.  Be- 
cause a  man  is  thought  and  soul  must  he  therefore 
gorge  himself  with  riches?  When  the  great  Dona- 
tello  and  his  companions  designed  a  bronze  statue  it 
was  he  who  was  the  soul  of  the  creation.  He  placed 
the  price  paid  for  the  work  by  the  prince  and  the 
citizens  in  a  basket  which  hung  from  a  pulley  fixed 
to  one  of  the  rafters  of  the  studio,  and  each  of  his 


178  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

companions  untied  the  rope  and  took  from  the 
basket  what  he  needed.  Is  not  the  joy  of  creative 
intelligence  enough,  and  does  such  an  advantage 
exempt  the  master  worker  from  sharing  the  gain 
with  his  humble  collaborators?  But  in  my  Republic 
there  will  be  no  gain,  no  wages,  and  all  will  belong 
to  each." 

"Papa,  that's  collectivism,"  said  Pauline  quietly. 

"The  most  precious  gifts,"  replied  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  "are  common  to  all  men  and  have  always 
been  so.  Air  and  light  are  the  common  property 
of  all  that  breathes  and  sees  the  light  of  day.  After 
the  secular  labours  of  egoism  and  avarice,  in  spite 
of  the  violent  efforts  of  individuals  to  seize  and  keep 
wealth,  the  individual  possessions  enjoyed  by  the 
wealthiest  among  us  are  little  when  compared  with 
those  that  belong  without  distinction  to  mankind 
in  general.  And  even  in  our  society  do  you  not 
notice  that  the  most  beautiful  and  splendid  posses- 
sions, such  as  roads,  rivers,  forests,  which  were  once 
royal,  libraries  and  museums,  belong  to  all?  Not 
a  single  rich  man  has  a  greater  claim  than  I  to  an 
old  oak-tree  at  Fontainebleau  or  a  picture  in  the 
Louvre.  And  they  are  more  mine  than  the  rich 
man's  if  I  can  appreciate  them  better.  Collective 
property,  dreaded  like  some  remote  monster,  is 
already  among  us  in  a  thousand  familiar  forms. 
When  prophesied,  it  alarms,  in  spite  of  the  fact 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  179 

that  we  already  enjoy  many  of  the  advantages  which 
it  affords. 

"The  Positivists  who  meet  in  the  house  of  Auguste 
Comte,  under  the  leadership  of  the  venerable  Mon- 
sieur Pierre  Laffitte,  are  in  no  hurry  to  become 
Socialists.  But  one  of  them  made  the  judicious 
remark  that  allproperty  springs  from  a  social  source. 
Nothing  could  be  truer,  for  all  property  acquired 
by  individual  effort  was  created,  and  subsists,  only 
by  the  co-operation  of  the  whole  community.  And 
since  private  property  springs  from  a  social  source 
we  neither  forget  its  origin  nor  corrupt  its  essence 
if  we  offer  it  to  the  community  and  entrust  it  to  the 
State  upon  which  it  necessarily  depends.  And  what 
is  the  State?" 

Mademoiselle  Bergeret  hastened  to  answer  that 
question : 

"The  State,  papa,  is  a  wretched  cross-grained 
person  sitting  behind  a  counter-rail.  You  must  see 
that  no  one  will  want  to  strip  himself  naked  for 
such  as  he." 

"I  understand,"  said  Monsieur  Bergeret  with  a 
smile.  "I  have  always  tried  to  understand,  and  in 
so  doing  I  have  wasted  much  precious  energy.  I  am 
discovering  late  in  life  that  not  to  understand  is  a 
great  faculty.  It  sometimes  helps  you  to  the  con- 
quest of  the  world.  If  Napoleon  had  been  as  intelli- 
gent as  Spinoza  he  would  have  lived  in  a  garret  and 


i8o  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

written  four  books.     I  understand.     But  to  return 
to    this    wretched    cross-grained   man    behind    the 
counter-rail,  you  trust  your  letters  to  him,  Pauline, 
letters  that  you  would  not  trust  to  the  Tricoche 
Agency.     He  manages  a  portion  of  your  property, 
not  the  least  in  extent  or  in  value.    He  looks  gloomy 
to  you,  but  when  he  becomes  everything  he  will  cease 
to  be  anything,  or  rather  he  will  only  be  ourselves. 
Annihilated  by  his   universality,   he   will   cease   to 
appear  tiresome.     One   is  no   longer  wicked,   my 
daughter,  when  one  ceases  to  exist.     What  makes 
him  unpleasant  to-day  is  that  he  encroaches  on  indi- 
vidual property,  that  he  goes  along  filing  and  scratch- 
ing, taking  a  little  bite  from  the  fat  and  a  big  bite 
from  the  thin.    That  makes  him  unbearable.    He  is 
greedy;  he  is  needy.     In  my  Republic  he  will  be 
without  desires,  like  the  gods.    He  will  have  all  and 
nothing.     We  shall  not  notice  him  because  he  will 
be  like  ourselves,  indistinguishable  from  ourselves; 
will  be  as  though  he  didn't  exist.     And  when  you 
say  that  I  sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  State,  the 
living  man  to  an  abstraction,  I  am,  on  the  contrary, 
subordinating  the  abstraction  to  reality,  to  the  State 
which  I  suppress,  by  identifying  it  with  the  activities 
of  the  whole  social  organism. 

"Even  were  my  Republic  never  to  exist  I 
should  be  glad  that  I  had  played  with  this  idea  of 
it.  It  is  permissible  to  build  in  Utopia.  And  Au- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  181 

guste  Comte  himself,  who  flattered  himself  that  he 
built  only  on  the  data  of  positive  science,  placed 
Campanella  in  the  calendar  of  great  men. 

"The  dreams  of  philosophers  have  in  all  ages 
raised  up  men  of  action  who  have  set  to  work  to 
realize  those  dreams.  Our  thought  creates  the 
future.  Statesmen  work  on  the  plans  which  we  leave 
behind  us.  No,  my  child,  I  am  not  building  in 
Utopia.  My  dream,  which  in  no  way  belongs  to 
me,  but  is,  at  this  very  moment,  the  dream  of  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  souls,  is  true  and  prophetic. 
All  societies  whose  organs  no  longer  correspond  to 
the  functions  for  which  they  were  created,  and  whose 
members  are  not  recompensed  according  to  the  use- 
ful work  which  they  accomplish,  die.  Deep-rooted 
disturbances  and  inward  disorder  precede  and  pro- 
claim their  end. 

"Feudal  society  was  strongly  constituted.  When 
the  clergy  ceased  to  represent  learning,  and  the 
nobility  to  defend  the  labourer  and  artisan  by  the 
sword,  and  these  two  orders  became  merely  swollen 
and  dangerous  members,  the  whole  body  perished. 
An  unexpected  and  necessary  revolution  carried  off 
the  patriot.  Who  can  maintain  that  in  modern 
society  the  organs  correspond  with  their  functions 
and  that  all  the  members  are  nourished  in  proportion 
to  the  useful  work  which  they  perform?  Who  can 
maintain  that  there  is  a  fair  distribution  of  wealth? 


i8a  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Who,  I  say,  can  believe  in  the  permanence  of  un- 
righteousness?" 

"And  how  can  we  put  an  end  to  it,  papa?  How 
can  we  change  the  world?" 

"By  the  force  of  speech,  my  child.  Nothing  is 
more  powerful  than  speech.  The  linking  of  power- 
ful arguments  and  noble  thoughts  forms  a  chain 
that  nothing  can  break.  Speech,  like  the  sling  of 
David,  lays  low  the  violent  and  causes  the  mighty 
to  fall.  It  is  an  invincible  weapon,  without  which 
the  world  would  belong  to  armed  brutes.  What 
keeps  them  in  abeyance?  Merely  thought,  naked 
and  weaponless. 

"I  shall  not  see  the  new  State.  All  changes  in  the 
social  order,  as  in  the  natural  order,  are  slow  and 
almost  imperceptible.  A  geologist  of  profound 
understanding,  Charles  Lyell  by  name,  demonstrated 
that  those  fearful  traces  of  the  glacial  period,  those 
monstrous  rocks  carried  into  the  valleys,  the  flora 
and  the  furry  beasts  of  cold  countries  succeeding  to 
the  flora  and  fauna  of  hot  countries,  those  apparent 
tokens  of  cataclysmic  upheaval,  were  in  reality  only 
the  effect  of  prolonged  and  multiple  action,  and  that 
those  great  changes,  produced  with  the  merciful 
deliberation  of  natural  forces,  were  not  even  sus* 
pected  by  the  innumerable  generations  of  living  crea- 
tures that  existed  during  their  accomplishment. 
Social  transformations  operate  in  the  same  way, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  183 

insensibly  and  incessantly.  The  timid  man  fears,  as 
he  would  a  future  cataclysm,  a  change  which  began 
before  he  was  born,  which  is  going  on  before  his 
unconscious  eyes,  and  which  will  become  noticeable 
only  in  a  century's  time." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ONSIEUR    FELIX    PANNETON 

was  sauntering  up  the  Champs- 
Elysees  on  his  way  to  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe,  calculating  the  chances  of 
his  election  to  the  Senate.  His  can- 
didature had  not  yet  been  announced.  And  Mon- 
sieur Panneton  reflected,  like  Bonaparte:  "To  act, 
to  calculate,  to  act  ..."  Two  lists  had  already 
been  offered  to  the  electors  of  the  department.  The 
four  retiring  Senators,  Laprat-Teulet,  Goby,  Manne- 
quin and  Ledru,  were  presenting  themselves  for 
re-election.  The  Nationalist  candidates  were  the 
Comte  de  Brece,  Colonel  Despauteres,  Monsieur 
Lerond  the  ex-magistrate,  and  Lafolie  the  butcher. 
It  was  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two  lists  would 
win  the  day.  The  retiring  Senators  found  favour  in 
the  eyes  of  the  peace-lovers  because  of  their  long  ex- 
perience of  legislation,  and  because  they  were  guar- 
dians of  those  liberal  yet  authoritative  traditions 
which  dated  back  to  the  foundation  of  the  Republic 
and  were  connected  with  the  legendary  name  of 
Gambetta.  They  won  the  public  favour  by  intelli- 

184 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  185 

gently-rendered  services  and  abundant  promises,  and 
they  had  a  large  and  well-disciplined  body  of  sup- 
porters. These  public  men,  who  had  lived  in  stirring 
times,  remained  faithful  to  their  doctrine  with  a 
firmness  that  embellished  the  sacrifices  which  cir- 
cumstances forced  them  to  make  to  the  exigencies 
of  public  opinion.  Opportunists  in  former  days, 
they  now  called  themselves  Radicals.  At  the  time 
of  the  Affair  they  had  all  four  testified  to  their  pro- 
found respect  for  the  court-martial,  and  in  one  of 
them  this  respect  was  mingled  with  genuine  emotion. 
The  ex-attorney  Goby  could  never  speak  of  mili- 
tary justice  without  shedding  tears.  The  oldest  of 
them,  Laprat-Teulet,  a  Republican  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  great  conflicts  of  the  heroic  days,  spoke 
of  the  Army  in  such  loving  and  impassioned  terms 
that,  at  any  other  period,  his  hearers  would  have 
judged  his  expressions  more  applicable  to  some  poor 
orphan  girl  than  to  an  institution  so  strong  in  men 
and  in  millions.  These  four  Senators  had  voted  for 
the  law  of  deprivation  and  had  expressed  to  the 
General  Council  the  pious  hope  that  the  Government 
would  take  stringent  measures  to  check  the  Revi- 
sionist agitation.  These  were  the  Dreyfusards  of 
the  department,  and  as  there  were  no  others  they 
were  furiously  opposed  by  the  Nationalists.  They 
blamed  Mannequin  for  being  the  brother-in-law  of 
a  councillor  in  the  Court  of  Appeal.  As  for  Laprat- 


1 86  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Teulet,  who  headed  the  list,  he  was  greeted  with 
insults  and  venomous  abuse  that  bespattered  them 
all.  Truth  to  tell,  he  had  done  a  stroke  or  two  of 
business  on  his  own  account.  People  recalled  the 
time  when,  finding  himself  mixed  up  in  the  Panama 
affair  and  threatened  with  arrest,  he  had  grown  a 
long  beard  that  gave  him  a  venerable  appearance 
and  was  wheeled  about  in  a  little  chair  by  his  pious 
wife  and  his  daughter,  the  latter  dressed  as  a  nun. 
Every  day,  as  part  of  this  humble  and  saintly  pro- 
cession, he  would  pass  by  beneath  the  elm-trees  of 
the  Mall  and  have  himself  put  in  the  sun,  a  poor 
paralytic  who  traced  figures  in  the  dust  with  the  tip 
of  his  walking-stick,  while  with  cunning  skill  he  pre- 
pared his  defence,  which  a  verdict  of  "insufficient 
cause"  had  rendered  useless.  Since  then  he  had 
recovered,  but  the  fury  of  the  Nationalists  was  hot 
against  him.  He  was  a  Panamist,  so  they  called 
him  a  Dreyfusard.  "This  man,"  said  Ledru  to 
himself,  "will  ruin  the  whole  lot  of  us."  He  men- 
tioned his  apprehensions  to  Worms-Clavelin : 

"Would  it  not  be  possible,  monsieur  le  prefet,  to 
make  Laprat-Teulet,  a  man  who  has  rendered  such 
signal  service  to  the  Republic  and  the  country,  un- 
derstand that  the  time  has  come  for  him  to  retire 
into  private  life?" 

The  prefect  replied  that  they  must  think  twice 
before  decapitating  the  Republican  list. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  187 

However,  the  newspaper  La  Croix,  introduced 
into  the  department  by  Madame  Worms-Clavelin, 
carried  on  a  ferocious  campaign  against  the  retiring 
Senators.  It  supported  the  Republican  list,  which 
was  cleverly  constructed.  Monsieur  de  Brece  rallied 
the  Royalists,  who  were  fairly  strong  in  the  depart- 
ment; Monsieur  Lerond,  as  ex-magistrate  and  a 
clerical  advocate,  was  favoured  by  the  clergy;  and 
Colonel  Despauteres,  in  himself  an  unimportant  old 
man,  represented  the  honour  of  the  Army.  He  had 
praised  the  forgers  and  was  among  the  subscribers 
to  the  fund  for  the  widow  of  Colonel  Henry.  The 
butcher  Lafolie  pleased  the  working-people,  who 
were  half  peasants,  living  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
town.  It  was  believed  that  the  Brece  list  would 
obtain  more  than  two  hundred  votes  and  that  it 
might  go  right  through.  Monsieur  Worms-Clavelin 
was  uneasy,  and  when  La  Croix  published  the  mani- 
festo of  the  Nationalist  candidates  he  became  ex- 
tremely anxious.  It  attacked  the  President  of  the 
Republic,  called  the  Senate  a  poultry-run  and  a  pig- 
sty, and  referred  to  the  Cabinet  as  the  "Ministry 
of  Treason."  "If  these  fellows  get  in,  I'm  done," 
thought  the  prefect,  and  he  remarked  gently  to  his 
wife: 

"You  were  wrong,  my  dear,  to  favour  the  diffu- 
sion of  La  Croix  in  the  department." 

"What  else  could  I  do?"  she  replied.     "As  a 


i88  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Jewess,  I  was  obliged  to  exaggerate  my  Catholic 
opinions.  And  up  to  now  that  has  helped  us  a 
good  deal." 

"True,"  replied  the  prefect;  "but  we  have  per- 
haps gone  a  little  too  far." 

Monsieur  Lacarelle,  secretary  to  the  prefecture, 
whose  famous  resemblance  to  Vercingetorix  inclined 
him  to  Nationalism,  spoke  in  favour  of  the  Brece 
list,  and  Monsieur  Worms-Clavelin,  a  prey  to 
gloomy  meditation,  forgot  his  cigars  and  left  them, 
with  chewed  ends  and  still  alight,  on  the  arms  of 
the  chairs. 

Just  at  this  time  Monsieur  Felix  Panneton 
called  to  see  him. 

Monsieur  Felix  Panneton,  the  younger  brother 
of  Monsieur  Panneton  de  La  Barge,  was  an  army 
contractor.  No  one  could  suspect  his  love  of  the 
Army  whose  heads  and  feet  he  covered.  He  was  a 
Nationalist,  but  a  Government-Nationalist.  He  was 
a  Nationalist  with  Monsieur  Loubet  and  Monsieur 
Waldeck-Rousseau.  He  did  not  disguise  the  fact, 
and  when  he  was  told  that  such  a  thing  was  impos- 
sible he  replied : 

"It  isn't  impossible;  it  isn't  even  difficult;  the 
main  thing  was  the  idea." 

Panneton  the  Nationalist  remained  loyal  to  the 
Government.  "There  is  plenty  of  time  to  change," 
he  thought,  "and  all  those  who  broke  too  soon  with 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  189 

the  Government  have  had  cause  to  regret  it.  One 
is  too  apt  to  forget  that  even  a  prostrate  Ministry 
has  time  to  deal  you  a  kick  and  break  your  jaw." 
Such  wisdom  was  the  fruit  of  his  common  sense. 
He  was  ambitious,  but  did  his  best  to  satisfy  his 
ambition  without  sacrificing  his  business  or  his  pleas- 
ures, which  were  pictures  and  women.  For  the  rest, 
he  was  a  very  energetic  person,  always  running  to 
and  fro  between  his  factories  and  Paris,  where  he 
had  three  or  four  addresses. 

The  idea  of  worming  his  way  in  between  the 
Radicals  and  the  pure  Nationalists  having  dawned 
upon  him  one  day,  he  went  to  see  Monsieur 
Worms-Clavelin. 

"The  proposition  I  am  about  to  make  to  you, 
monsieur  le  prefet,  cannot  but  be  agreeable  to  you. 
I  therefore  feel  certain  beforehand  of  your  consent," 
he  said.  "You  are  anxious  for  the  success  of  the 
Laprat-Teulet  list.  It  is  your  duty  to  be  so.  I 
respect  your  feelings  in  the  matter,  but  I  cannot 
second  them.  You  are  afraid  of  the  success  of  the 
Brece  list.  Nothing  more  legitimate.  In  this  con- 
nection I  may  be  useful  to  you.  I  am  forming,  with 
three  of  my  friends,  a  list  of  Nationalist  candidates. 
The  department  is  Nationalist  but  it  is  moderate. 
My  programme  will  be  Nationalist  and  Repub- 
lican. I  shall  have  the  clergy  against  me,  but  the 
bishops  will  be  on  my  side.  Do  not  contest  my 


190  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

claim.  Observe  a  benevolent  neutrality  toward  me. 
I  shall  not  take  many  votes  from  the  Laprat  list, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  shall  take  a  great  many 
from  the  Brece  list.  I  will  not  disguise  the  fact  that 
I  quite  expect  to  go  through  on  the  third  scrutiny. 
But  this  will  be  to  your  advantage  as  well,  because 
the  extremists  will  be  left  in  the  cart." 

"Monsieur  Panneton,"  replied  Monsieur  Worms- 
Clavelin,  "you  have  long  been  assured  of  my  per- 
sonal sympathies.  I  thank  you  for  the  interesting 
communication  which  you  have  been  kind  enough 
to  make.  I  will  think  it  over  and  act  in  conformity 
with  the  interest  of  the  Republican  Party,  endeav- 
ouring meanwhile  to  fathom  the  intentions  of  the 
Government." 

He  offered  Monsieur  Panneton  a  cigar  and  in  a 
friendly  way  asked  him  if  he  had  not  just  come 
from  Paris,  and  what  he  thought  of  the  new  piece 
at  the  Varietes.  He  asked  this  question  because  he 
knew  that  Panneton  was  keeping  one  of  the  actresses 
there.  Felix  Panneton  was  supposed  to  be  a  great 
lover  of  women.  He  was  a  big,  ugly  man  of  fifty, 
dark  and  bald,  with  high  shoulders  and  a  reputation 
for  wit. 

Some  days  after  his  interview  with  Worms- 
Clavelin,  he  was  walking  up  the  Champs-filysees 
thinking  of  his  candidature,  which  augured  fairly 
well,  and  of  the  importance  of  making  a  start  as 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  191 

soon  as  possible.  But  just  at  the  moment  of  pub- 
lishing the  list,  which  he  headed,  one  of  the  candi- 
dates, Monsieur  de  Terremondre,  had  backed  out. 
Monsieur  de  Terremondre  was  too  moderate  to 
separate  himself  from  the  extremists.  Hearing  their 
cries  redoubled,  he  had  gone  back  to  them.  "Just 
what  I  expected,"  thought  Panneton.  "It  doesn't 
much  matter.  I  will  put  Gromance  in  Terre- 
mondre's  place.  Gromance  will  do  the  trick,  Gro- 
mance the  landed  proprietor — and  every  acre  that 
he  possesses  mortgaged.  But  that  will  do  him  no 
harm  except  in  his  own  district.  He  is  in  Paris. 
I'll  go  and  see  him." 

He  had  reached  this  point  in  his  reflections  when 
he  saw  Madame  de  Gromance  coming  towards  him 
in  a  mink  coat  that  came  down  to  her  feet.  Even 
under  the  thick  fur  she  was  still  slim  and  dainty.  He 
found  her  delicious. 

"I  am  delighted  to  see  you,  dear  lady.  How  is 
Monsieur  de  Gromance?" 

"Oh— quite  well." 

When  people  asked  her  for  news  of  her  husband 
she  was  always  afraid  of  their  doing  so  in  an  ill-bred 
spirit  of  irony. 

"May  I  walk  a  little  way  with  you,  madame?  I 
want  to  discuss  some  serious  matters  with  you. 
First " 

"Well?" 


i92  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"That  coat  gives  you  a  barbaric  appearance,  you 
look  like  a  charming  little  savage." 

"Are  these  the  serious  matters?" 

"I'm  coming  to  them.  It  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  Monsieur  de  Gromance  to  present  himself  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Senate,  The  interests  of  his  coun- 
try demand  it.  Monsieur  de  Gromance  is  a  Na- 
tionalist, is  he  not?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  touch  of  indignation. 

"He  certainly  isn't  an  Intellectual." 

"And  is  he  a  Republican?" 

"Heavens,  yes!  I'll  explain.  He's  a  Royalist. 
So  you  understand " 

"Ah,  dear  lady,  those  are  the  best  Republicans. 
We  will  put  the  name  of  Monsieur  de  Gromance 
prominently  upon  our  list  of  Republican  National- 
ists." 

"And  do  you  think  that  Dieudonne  will  get  in?" 

"Madame,  I  think  so.  We  have  the  bishops  with 
us  and  many  senatorial  electors  who,  although  Na- 
tionalists by  conviction,  uphold  the  Government  on 
account  of  their  office  or  their  interests.  And  in  the 
event  of  failure,  which  could  only  be  an  honourable 
failure,  Monsieur  de  Gromance  can  rely  on  the  grati- 
tude of  the  Government  and  the  Administration. 
I'll  tell  you  a  great  secret.  Worms-Clavelin  is  on 
our  side." 

"Then  I  don't  see  why  Dieudonne " 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  193 

"Are  you  quite  sure  your  husband  will  accept?" 

"Go  and  see  him  yourself." 

"You  are  the  only  person  with  any  influence 
over  him." 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"I  am  quite  sure  of  it." 

"Then  it's  settled." 

"No,  it  isn't  settled.  There  are  very  delicate 
details  which  we  can't  settle  like  this  in  the  street. 
Come  and  see  me  and  I  will  show  you  my  Baudouins. 
Come  to-morrow." 

He  whispered  the  address,  the  number  of  a  house 
in  a  dull  deserted  street  in  the  Quartier  de  1'Europe. 
There,  at  a  respectable  distance  from  his  lawful  and 
spacious  domicile  in  the  Champs-filysees,  he  had  a 
small  house,  built  in  former  days  for  a  fashionable 
painter. 

"Is  there  any  special  hurry?" 

"I  should  say  so.  Just  think,  my  dear  madamev 
we  have  only  three  weeks  left  for  our  electoral  cam- 
paign and  Brece  has  been  working  the  department 
for  six  months." 

"But  is  it  quite  necessary  that  I  should  come  and 
see  your ?" 

"My  Baudouins?     It  is  indispensable." 

"Is  it  really?" 

"Listen  and  judge  for  yourself,  dear  lady.  I  do 
not  deny  that  your  husband's  name  has  a  certain 


194  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

prestige  among  the  rural  population,  especially  in 
the  parts  where  he  is  little  known.  But  I  cannot 
disguise  the  fact  that  when  I  proposed  to  add  his 
name  to  our  list  I  met  with  opposition.  This  oppo- 
sition still  exists.  You  must  give  me  strength  to 
overcome  it.  I  must  draw  from  your — your  friend- 
ship the  irresistible  will  to In  short,  I  feel  that 

if  you  do  not  give  me  your  sympathy  I  shall  not 

have  the  necessary  energy  to " 

"But  is  it  quite  proper  for  me  to  go  and  see 
your ?" 

"Oh,  in  Paris!" 

"If  I  do,  of  course  it  will  be  for  the  sake  of  the 
country  and  the  Army.  We  must  save  France." 

"That  is  my  opinion." 

"Remember  me  to  Madame  Panneton." 

"I  will  not  forget,  dear  madame.  Until 
to-morrow." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

N  Monsieur  Felix  Panneton's  little 
house  there  was  a  large  room  which 
had  formerly  been  used  as  a  studio 
by  the  fashionable  painter,  and  which 
the  new  inmate  had  furnished  with 
the  magnificence  of  a  great  collector  of  curios  and 
the  discretion  of  an  accomplished  lover  of  women. 
Artistically  and  in  methodical  order  Monsieur 
Panneton  had  strewn  the  room  with  couches,  sofas 
and  divans  of  all  shapes  and  kinds. 

Looking  from  right  to  left  as  you  went  in,  you 
would  first  of  all  notice  a  little  blue  silk  settee  the 
arms  of  which,  shaped  like  a  swan's  neck,  reminded 
one  of  the  time  when  Bonaparte  in  Paris,  like 
Tiberius  of  old  in  Rome,  was  bent  on  improving 
the  manners  and  customs  of  society.  Then  came 
another  rather  bigger  couch  upholstered  in  Beauvais 
cloth  with  tapestry-covered  ends;  then  a  settee  in 
three  divisions,  covered  in  silk;  then  a  little 
wooden  settee  a  la  capucine  with  a  covering  of 
Turkish  tapestry;  then  a  large  sofa  of  gilded  wood 
upholstered  in  crimson  figured  velvet  with  cushions 

195 


196  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

of  the  same,  which  had  belonged  to  Mademoiselle 
Damours;  then  a  broad,  low,  luxuriously  stuffed 
divan  of  flame-coloured  silk;  and  finally  a  tottering 
mass  of  soft  cushions  on  a  very  low  Oriental  divan 
which,  bathed  in  a  dim  rose-coloured  light,  stood 
on  the  left  near  the  Baudouin  room. 

As  she  entered  the  room,  each  charming  visitor 
could  thus  take  in  with  a  glance  the  varied  seats  and 
choose  the  one  that  best  suited  her  moral  character 
and  her  present  state  of  mind.  Panneton,  from  the 
first,  observed  his  new  friends,  noticed  their  expres- 
sions, took  some  trouble  to  discover  their  tastes,  and 
was  careful  to  ensure  that  they  should  sit  only  where 
they  wished  to  sit.  The  more  chaste  of  his  lady 
friends  went  straight  to  the  little  blue  settee,  placing 
a  gloved  hand  on  the  swan's  neck.  There  was  also 
a  high  straight-backed  arm-chair  of  gilded  wood  and 
Genoa  velvet,  the  former  throne  of  a  Duchess  of 
Modena  and  Parma ;  that  was  for  the  haughty  beau- 
ties. The  Parisian  ladies  seated  themselves  calmly 
on  the  Beauvais  couch ;  the  foreign  princesses  gener- 
ally preferred  one  of  the  two  sofas.  Thanks  to 
the  judicious  arrangement  of  these  aids  to  conver- 
sation, Panneton  knew  at  a  glance  what  he  had  to 
do.  He  was  in  a  position  to  observe  all  the  conven- 
tions, careful  not  to  attempt  too  sudden  a  transition 
in  the  necessary  succession  of  his  attitudes,  and  was 
able  to  spare  both  his  visitor  and  himself  those  long 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  197 

and  useless  pauses  between  the  preliminary  courtesies 
and  the  inspection  of  the  Baudouins.  His  proceed- 
ings thereby  gained  a  certainty  and  a  mastery  which 
did  him  honour. 

Madame  de  Gromance  gave  immediate  proof  of  a 
tact  for  which  Panneton  was  grateful.  Without  so 
much  as  a  glance  at  the  throne  of  Parma  and  Mo- 
dena,  and  leaving  on  the  right  the  Napoleonic 
swan's  neck,  she  sat  on  the  flowered  Beauvais  sofa 
like  a  Parisienne.  Clotilde  had  languished  among 
the  smaller  landed  gentry  of  the  department  and  had 
had  attentions  paid  to  her  by  some  rather  under- 
bred young  men ;  but  the  meaning  of  life  was  dawn- 
ing upon  her.  She  had  racked  her  brains  over  money 
matters  and  was  beginning  to  understand  what  social 
duty  entailed.  She  did  not  dislike  Panneton  exces- 
sively. Partially  bald,  with  very  black  hair  brushed 
smoothly  over  his  temples,  and  large  prominent 
eyes,  he  looked  like  a  lovesick  apoplectic,  and  made 
her  feel  rather  inclined  to  laugh,  satisfying  that 
craving  for  the  comic  element  in  love  of  which  she 
had  always  been  conscious.  No  doubt  she  would 
have  preferred  a  magnificent  young  man,  but  she 
was  inclined  to  facile  gaiety  and  the  sort  of  amuse- 
ment which  a  man  derives  from  jokes  of  a  rather 
highly  salted  nature  and  a  certain  kind  of  ugliness. 
After  a  moment  of  very  natural  shyness  she  felt  that 
it  would  not  be  so  terrible,  nor  even  very  tedious. 


198  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Everything  went  well.  The  transit  from  the 
Beauvais  to  the  settee  and  from  the  settee  to  the  big 
sofa  took  place  with  all  due  decorum.  They  judged 
it  needless  to  linger  on  the  Oriental  cushions  and 
went  straight  into  the  Baudouin  room. 

When  Clotilde  thought  of  looking  at  it  the  room, 
like  the  erotic  painter's  pictures,  was  strewn  with 
women's  garments  and  fine  linen. 

"Ah,  there  are  the  Baudouins,  you  have  two  of 
them." 

"Just  so." 

He  had  the  Jardlnler  galant  and  the  Carquois 
epuise,  two  little  water-colours  for  which  he  had  paid 
60,000  francs  apiece  at  the  Godard  sale,  and  which 
cost  him  considerably  more  than  that  because  of  the 
use  to  which  he  put  them.  Calm  once  more,  and  a 
little  melancholy  even,  he  gazed  with  the  eye  of  a 
connoisseur  at  the  slender,  graceful,  supple  figure  of 
the  woman  before  him,  and,  finding  her  beautiful, 
was  conscious  of  a  little  feeling  of  pride,  which  grew 
as  she  gradually  reassumed  her  social  characteristics 
together  with  her  garments. 

She  demanded  the  list  of  candidates. 

"Panneton,  manufacturer;  Dieudonne  de  Gro- 
mance,  landed  proprietor;  Dr.  Fornerol;  Mulot, 
explorer." 

"Mulot?" 

"Young  Mulot.    He  was  running  up  bills  in  Paris, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  199 

so  his  father  sent  him  round  the  world.  Desire 
Mulct,  explorer.  That  sounds  well,  an  explorer 
candidate !  The  electors  hope  he  will  open  up  new 
fields  for  their  goods.  Above  all,  they  feel  flattered." 

Madame  de  Gromance  was  becoming  serious. 
She  wanted  to  hear  the  address  to  the  senatorial 
electors.  He  outlined  it  and  repeated  some  parts 
which  he  knew  by  heart. 

"First,  we  promise  general  pacification.  Brece 
and  the  pure  Nationalists  have  not  sufficiently 
insisted  on  pacification.  Then  we  absolutely 
demolish  the  nameless  party." 

She  asked  what  the  nameless  party  was. 

"For  us  it's  the  party  of  our  adversaries;  for  our 
adversaries  it  is  ourselves.  There  can  be  no  mistake 
about  that.  We  demolish  the  traitors,  the  creatures 
who  have  sold  themselves.  We  fight  against  the 
power  of  gold — that  is  useful  for  the  poor  ruined 
aristocracy.  Enemies  of  all  reaction,  we  repudiate 
political  adventure.  France  is  resolved  on  peace,  but 
the  day  when  she  draws  the  sword  from  the  scab- 
bard, etc.  The  country  that  regards  with  pride  and 
affection  her  admirable  national  Army —  I  shall 
have  to  alter  that  sentence  a  little." 

"Why?" 

"Because  it  is  in  both  the  other  addresses,  word 
for  word;  the  Nationalists  have  it  and  so  have  the 
enemies  of  the  Army." 


200  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"And  you  promise  me  that  Dieudonne  will 
get  in." 

"Dieudonne  or  Goby." 

"What!  Dieudonne  or  Goby?  If  you  were  not 
any  surer  than  that  you  ought  to  have  told  me. 
Dieudonne  or  Goby!  To  hear  you  one  would  think 
it  was  all  one  which  got  in." 

"It  isn't  all  one,  but  in  either  case  Brece  goes 
under." 

"Brece  is  one  of  our  friends,  you  know." 

"And  one  of  mine !  In  either  case,  as  I  said 
before,  Brece  and  his  list  will  go  under,  and  having 
contributed  to  his  downfall  the  prefect  and  the 
Government  will  be  under  obligations  to  Monsieur 
de  Gromance.  After  the  elections,  no  matter  how 
they  result,  you  will  come  and  see  my  Baudouins 
again  and  I  will  make  of  your  husband — whatever 
you  will." 

"An  ambassador." 

At  the  scrutiny  of  the  28th  of  January,  the  list  of 
Nationalist  candidates,  Comte  de  Brece,  Colonel 
Despauteres,Lerond,  ex-magistrate,  La folie, butcher, 
obtained  an  average  of  about  a  hundred  votes.  The 
Progressive  Republicans,  Felix  Panneton,  manufac- 
turer, Dieudonne  de  Gromance,  landed  proprietor, 
Mulot,  explorer,  and  Dr.  Fornerol,  obtained  an 
average  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  votes,  kaprat- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  201 

Teulet,  implicated  in  the  Panama  affair,  only  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  a  hundred  and  twenty  votes. 
The  other  three  retiring  Senators  obtained  an  aver- 
age of  two  hundred  votes. 

At  the  second  scrutiny  Laprat-Teulet's  votes  fell 
to  sixty. 

At  the  third  scrutiny  Goby,  Mannequin  and 
Ledru,  the  three  retiring  Radical  Senators,  and 
Felix  Panneton,  Republican  Progressive,  were 
elected. 


CHAPTER  XX 

OOK  at  the  scene  before  you,"  said 
Monsieur  Bergeret  to  his  disciple 
Monsieur  Goubin,  who  was  polishing 
his  eyeglass,  as  they  stood  on  the 
steps  of  the  Trocadero.  "Look  at 
the  domes,  minarets,  spires,  belfries,  towers  and 
pediments;  the  roofs  of  thatch,  slate,  glass,  tile, 
wood,  hide  and  coloured  earthenware;  the  Italian 
and  Moorish  terraces,  the  palaces,  temples,  pagodas, 
kiosks,  huts,  hovels,  and  tents;  the  fountains  and 
fire-works;  the  harmony  and  contrast  of  all  these 
human  habitations,  the  marvels  of  workmanship,  the 
wonderful  playthings  of  industry,  the  prodigious 
diversions  of  modern  genius,  which  has  brought  to- 
gether in  this  spot  the  arts  and  crafts  of  the  whole 
world." 

"Do  you  think,"  queried  Monsieur  Goubin, 
"that  France  will  derive  any  profit  from  this  huge 
Exhibition?" 

"She  may  reap  great  advantages  from  it,"  replied 
Monsieur  Bergeret,  "provided  it  does  not  fill  her 
with  a  barren  and  hostile  pride.  All  this  is  only 

202 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  203 

the  decoration  and  envelope,  it  is  the  study  of  what 
it  contains  that  will  give  us  the  opportunity  of  con- 
sidering more  minutely  the  exchange  and  circulation 
of  products,  their  consumption  at  fair  prices,  the 
increase  of  work  and  wages  and  the  emancipation  of 
the  worker.  And  do  you  not  admire,  Monsieur 
Goubin,  one  of  the  first  kind  offices  of  the  Universal 
Exhibition,  in  scaring  away  Jean  Coq  and  Jean 
Mouton?  Where  are  they  now?  You  neither  see 
nor  hear  them  nowadays,  and  formerly  one  saw 
nothing  else.  Jean  Coq  led  the  way,  with  his  head 
high,  his  calves  prominent.  Jean  Mouton  followed 
him,  fat  and  curly-headed.  The  whole  city  re- 
echoed to  the  sound  of  their  cock-a-doodle-doo  and 
baa-baa-baa,  for  they  were  eloquent.  One  day  this 
winter  I  overheard  Jean  Coq  say,  'We  must  have  a 
war.  This  Government  has  made  it  inevitable  by 
its  cowardice!'  And  Jean  Mouton  replied:  'I'd 
rather  have  a  naval  war.'  'Of  course,'  said  Jean 
Coq,  'a  sea-fight  would  be  consistent  with  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  Nationalists.  But  why  not  have  war  on 
land  as  well  as  on  sea?  Who's  to  stop  us?'  'No 
one,'  replied  Jean  Coq.  'I  should  like  to  see  anyone 
try  to  stop  us!  But  we  must  first  exterminate  all 
traitors  and  spies,  all  Jews  and  Freemasons.  That 
is  essential.'  'That's  just  what  I  think,'  replied  Jean 
Mouton.  'And  I  will  not  go  to  war  until  our  land 
has  been  cleared  of  all  her  enemies.' 


204  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Jean  Coq  is  hot-headed,  Jean  Mouton  mild  and 
peaceful,  but  they  both  know  only  too  well  how  to 
whet  the  national  energies  not  to  attempt  by  every 
means  in  their  power  to  assure  to  their  country  the 
benefits  of  war  at  home  and  abroad. 

"Jean  Coq  and  Jean  Mouton  are  Republicans. 
Jean  Coq  votes  at  every  election  for  the  Imperialist 
candidate,  and  Jean  Mouton  for  the  Royalist,  but 
they  are  both  of  them  Republican  Plebiscitarians, 
and  can  imagine  nothing  better  for  the  consolidation 
of  their  cljosen  Government  than  to  deliver  it  over 
to  the  hazards  of  an  obscure  and  disorderly  suffrage ; 
in  which  they  show  themselves  to  be  clever  fellows. 
For  it  is,  of  course,  a  profitable  thing,  if  you  have  a 
house,  to  stake  it  at  dice  against  a  truss  of  hay, 
because  by  so  doing  you  run  the  chance  of  winning 
your  own  house,  which  of  course  would  be  a  great 
advantage. 

"Jean  Coq  is  not  pious,  neither  is  Jean  Mouton 
a  clerical,  although  he  is  no  Freethinker,  but  they 
venerate  and  cherish  the  monks  who  grow  rich  by 
the  sale  of  miracles  and  who  publish  seditious,  insult- 
ing and  slanderous  newspapers.  And  you  know  as 
well  as  I  do  how  such  people  abound  in  this  country 
of  ours  and  how  they  prey  upon  it. 

"Jean  Coq  and  Jean  Mouton  are  patriots. 
You  think  you,  too,  are  a  patriot,  and  I  know  that 
you  are  attached  to  your  country  by  the  tender  and 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  205 

invincible  ties  of  sentiment  and  reason.  You  are 
mistaken,  however,  and  if  it  be  your  wish  to  live  at 
peace  with  the  world  you  are  in  league  with  the 
enemy.  Jean  Coq  and  Jean  Mouton  will  prove  that 
by  falling  upon  you  with  their  cudgels  to  the  war-cry 
of  'France  for  the  French !'  'France  for  the  French !' 
is  the  slogan  of  Jean  Coq  and  Jean  Mouton,  and  as 
it  is  evident  that  these  words  exactly  describe  the 
position  of  a  great  nation  in  the  midst  of  other  na- 
tions, and  express  the  necessary  conditions  of  life, 
the  universal  law  of  exchange,  the  commerce  of  ideas 
and  of  products,  just  as  they  contain  a  great  eco- 
nomical doctrine  and  a  profound  philosophy,  Jean 
Coq  and  Jean  Mouton  have  made  up  their  minds  to 
shut  out  all  foreigners  in  order  to  keep  France  for 
the  French,  thus,  by  a  stroke  of  genius,  extending  to 
human  beings  the  system  which  Monsieur  Meline 
applied  only  to  the  products  of  agriculture  and 
industry,  for  the  greater  profit  of  a  small  number  of 
landed  proprietors.  And  this  idea  of  Jean  Coq's, 
of  closing  the  country  to  men  of  other  nations,  en- 
forces, by  its  modest  beauty,  the  admiration  of  quite 
a  host  of  small  middle-class  people  and  coffee-house 
keepers. 

"Jean  Coq  and  Jean  Mouton  are  not  evil ;  they  are 
only  the  innocent  enemies  of  the  human  species.  Jean 
Coq  is  the  more  ardent,  Jean  Mouton  the  more 
melancholy,  but  they  are  simple  fellows  both,  and 


206  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

believe  what  their  newspapers  tell  them.  This 
throws  a  dazzling  light  upon  their  innocence,  for  it 
is  not  easy  to  believe  what  their  newspapers  tell 
them.  I  take  you  all  to  witness,  all  you  famous 
impostors,  you  forgers  of  all  time;  you  egregious 
liars,  distinguished  tricksters,  notorious  creators  of 
fictitious  errors  and  illusions;  you  whose  time- 
honoured  frauds  have  enriched  literature,  sacred  and 
profane,  by  so  many  dubious  volumes;  authors  of 
apocryphal  Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  Syrian  and  Chal- 
dean writings  which  have  so  long  deceived  learned 
and  ignorant  alike;  you,  false  Pythagoras,  false 
Hermes-Trismegistus,  false  Sanchoniathon,  falla- 
cious editors  of  the  Orphic  poems  and  the  Sibylline 
books;  false  Enoch,  false  Esdras,  pseudo-Clement 
and  pseudo-Timothy;  and  you  lord  abbots  who,  to 
assure  yourselves  of  the  possession  of  your  lands 
and  privileges,  forged  in  the  reign  of  Louis  IX  the 
charters  of  Clotaire  and  Dagobert;  and  you, 
doctors  of  canon  law,  who  based  the  pretensions  of 
the  Holy  See  on  a  heap  of  sacred  decretals  composed 
by  yourselves;  and  you,  wholesale  manufacturers 
of  historical  memoirs:  Soulavie,  Courchamps, 
Touchard-La fosse,  lying  Weber,  lying  Bourrienne; 
you,  sham  executioners  and  sham  police-agents,  who 
wrote  the  sordid  memoirs  of  Samson  and  Monsieur 
Claude;  and  you,  Vrain-Lucas,  who  with  your  own 
hand  traced  a  letter  said  to  be  written  by  Mary 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  207 

Magdalene,  and  a  note  from  the  hand  of  Vercinge- 
torix,  I  call  you  all  to  witness ;  and  you  whose  whole 
life  was  a  work  of  simulation;  lying  Smerdis,  lying 
Neros,  lying  Maids  of  Orleans,  who  would  have 
deceived  the  very  brothers  of  Joan  of  Arc;  lying 
Martin  Guerre,  lying  Demetrius  and  fictitious  Dukes 
of  Normandy;  I  call  you  to  witness,  workers  of 
spells,  makers  of  miracles  that  seduced  the  mob: 
Simon  the  Magician,  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  Cagli- 
ostro,  Comte  de  Saint-Germain ;  I  call  you  to  witness, 
travellers  returning  from  far-off  countries,  who  had 
every  facility  for  lying  and  took  full  advantage  of 
it;  you  who  beheld  the  Cyclopes  and  the  Laestry- 
gones,  the  Magnetic  Mountain,  the  Roc  and  the 
Fish-Bishop;  and  you,  Sir  John  Maundeville,  who 
saw  in  Asia  devils  vomiting  fire;  and  you,  makers 
of  stories  and  fables  and  tales — Mother  Goose,  Tyl 
Eulenspiegel,  Baron  Munchausen! — and  you,  chival- 
rous and  picturesque  Spaniards,  most  notable  bab- 
blers, I  call  you  to  witness!  Bear  witness,  all  of 
you !  You  have  not  accumulated,  in  the  long  course 
of  the  centuries,  so  many  lies  as  Jean  Coq  and  Jean 
Mouton  read  in  their  newspapers  in  a  single  day! 
And  after  that,  how  can  we  be  surprised  that  they 
have  so  many  bogies  in  their  heads  1" 


CHAPTER  XXI 


JNDING  himself  implicated  in  the 
proceedings  instituted  against  the 
authors  of  the  plot  against  the 
Republic,  Joseph  Lacrisse  put  his 
person  and  his  papers  in  a  safe  place. 
The  police  commissary  whose  duty  it  was  to  seize 
the  correspondence  of  the  Royalist  Committee  was 
too  much  of  a  gentleman  not  to  give  the  members 
of  the  Committee  due  notice  of  his  visit.  He  gave 
them  twenty-four  hours'  warning,  thus  bringing  his 
natural  courtesy  into  line  with  his  legitimate  anxiety 
to  do  his  duty  properly,  for  in  common  with  the 
majority  he  believed  that  the  Republican  Ministry 
would  soon  be  overthrown,  and  that  a  Ribot  or 
Meline  Cabinet  would  take  its  place.  When  he  ap- 
peared at  the  headquarters  of  the  Committee  all  the 
drawers  and  pigeon-holes  were  empty.  They  were 
sealed  by  the  magistrate.  He  also  sealed  a  Bottin 
for  1897,  an  automobile  catalogue,  a  packet  of  ciga- 
rettes and  a  fancing  glove  which  were  found  on  the 
mantelpiece.  In  this  manner  he  obeyed  the  legal 
formalities,  on  which  we  must  congratulate  him; 

208 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  209 

one  should  always  observe  the  legal  formalities.  His 
name  was  Jonquille.  He  was  a  distinguished  magis- 
trate and  a  clever  man;  in  his  youth  he  had  composed 
songs  for  cafes-concerts.  One  of  his  works,  Les 
Cancrelats  dans  le  pain,  achieved  a  great  success  at 
the  Champs-filysees  in  1885. 

After  the  surprise  caused  by  these  unexpected  pro- 
ceedings, Joseph  Lacrisse  reassured  himself.  He 
soon  saw  that  the  conspirators  under  the  present 
Government  run  less  risk  than  under  the  First  Em- 
pire or  the  Monarchy,  and  that  the  Third  Republic 
is  by  no  means  bloodthirsty.  Madame  de  Bonmont 
alone  looked  upon  him  as  a  victim,  loving  him  the 
more  for  it,  for  she  was  generous.  She  showed  her 
love  by  tears  and  sobs  and  fits  of  nerves,  so  that  he 
spent  a  never-to-be-forgotten  fortnight  with  her  in 
Brussels.  This  was  the  extent  of  his  exile.  He  bene- 
fited by  one  of  the  first  verdicts  pronounced  by  the 
Supreme  Court.  I  do  not  complain  of  this,  and  if  it 
had  listened  to  me  the  Supreme  Court  would  have 
condemned  no  one.  Since  they  dared  not  prosecute 
all  the  offenders,  it  was  not  in  very  good  taste  to 
condemn  only  those  of  whom  they  were  least  afraid; 
to  condemn  them,  moreover,  for  actions  that  were 
not,  or  at  any  rate  did  not  seem,  sufficiently  distin- 
guished from  the  actions  for  which  they  had  already 
been  prosecuted.  Again,  that  the  only  persons  impli- 
cated in  an  Army  plot  should  have  been  civilians 


210  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

might  well  appear  strange.  To  all  of  which  some 
excellent  people  have  replied:  "People  must  do  the 
best  they  can  for  themselves."  Joseph  Lacrisse  had 
lost  none  of  his  energy.  He  was  ready  to  mend  the 
broken  threads  of  the  plot,  but  that  was  soon  recog- 
nized to  be  impossible,  although  the  majority  of  the 
police  commissaries  who  had  received  search  warrants 
would  have  treated  the  Royalists  with  the  same  deli- 
cacy as  Monsieur  Jonquille.  The  irony  of  chance  or 
the  imprudence  of  the  conspirators  placed  in  their 
hands,  in  spite  of  themselves,  enough  documentary 
evidence  to  reveal  the  secret  organization  of  the 
Committees  to  the  Attorney-General  of  the  Republic. 
They  could  no  longer  plot  in  safety,  and  had  lost  all 
hope  of  seeing  the  King  return  with  the  swallows. 

Madame  de  Bonmont  sold  the  six  white  horses 
she  had  bought  with  the  intention  of  offering  them 
to  the  Prince  for  his  entry  into  Paris  by  the  Avenue 
desChamps-filysees.  At  the  instigation  of  her  brother 
Wallstein  she  sold  them  to  Monsieur  Gilbert,  the 
director  of  the  National  Circus  at  the  Trocadero. 
Nor  had  she  the  anguish  of  selling  them  at  a  loss; 
she  even  made  a  little  profit  on  them.  But  the  tears 
fell  from  her  beautiful  eyes  when  the  six  lily-white 
chargers  left  her  stables,  never  to  return.  She  felt 
as  though  they  were  harnessed  to  the  funeral  car  of 
that  Royalty  whom  they  were  to  have  drawn  in 
triumph. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  211 

However,  the  Supreme  Court,  which  had  investi- 
gated the  affair  with  languid  curiosity,  was  still 
sitting. 

One  day  at  Madame  de  Bonmont's  house  young 
Lacrisse  permitted  himself  the  natural  satisfaction 
of  cursing  the  jury  that  had  acquitted  him  while  still 
retaining  some  of  the  accused  men  in  custody. 

"What  bandits  they  are !"  he  cried. 

"Ah,"  sighed  Madame  de  Bonmont,  "the 
Senate  is  in  the  pay  of  the  Ministry.  It  is  a  fright- 
ful Government.  Monsieur  Meline  would  never 
have  undertaken  this  abominable  prosecution.  He 
was  a  Republican,  but  he  was  an  honest  man.  Had 
he  remained  in  power,  the  King  would  be  in  France 
to-day." 

"Alas,  the  King  is  far  away  from  France  to-day," 
said  Henri  Leon,  who  had  never  had  many  illusions. 

Joseph  Lacrisse  shook  his  head,  and  a  long  silence 
ensued. 

"It's  perhaps  a  good  thing  for  you,"  said  Henri 
Leon. 

"How  so?" 

"I  say  that  in  a  way  it  is  rather  to  your  advan- 
tage, Lacrisse,  that  the  King  is  in  exile.  You  ought 
to  be  delighted,  allowing,  of  course,  for  your  patri- 
otic feelings." 

"I  don't  understand." 

"It's  very  simple.     If  you  were  a  financier  like 


212  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

myself,  the  return  of  the  Monarchy  might  have  been 
profitable  to  you,  if  it  were  only  for  the  Coronation 
loan.  The  King  would  have  raised  a  loan  shortly 
after  his  accession,  for  the  dear  man  would  have 
needed  money  to  reign  with.  There  would  have 
been  a  good  deal  to  be  made  out  of  the  business  for 
me;  but  what  would  you,  an  advocate,  have  gained 
by  the  Restoration?  A  prefecture?  A  lot  of  good 
that  would  be!  You  can  do  better  than  that  as  a 
Royalist  under  the  Republic.  You  speak  exceed- 
ingly well — don't  deny  it — you  speak  with  facility, 
gracefully.  You  are  one  of  the  twenty-five  or  thirty 
members  of  the  junior  bar  whom  Nationalism  has 
brought  into  prominence.  You  can  believe  me.  I'm 
not  saying  it  to  flatter  you.  A  good  speaker  has 
everything  to  gain  by  keeping  the  King  out  of  the 
country.  With  Philippe  at  the  £lysee  you  would  be 
given  some  post  in  the  Government  or  Administra- 
tion, and  that  sort  of  thing  quickly  does  for  a  man. 
If  you  take  up  the  people's  interests  you  displease 
the  King,  and  out  you  go.  If  you  devote  yourself  to 
the  King's  interests  the  people  complain,  and  the 
King  dismisses  you.  He  makes  mistakes,  and  you 
make  them,  but  you  are  punished  for  both ;  popular 
or  unpopular,  you  are  done  for  inevitably.  But  as 
long  as  the  King  is  in  exile  you  can  do  no  wrong. 
You  can  do  nothing;  you  have  no  responsibility!  It 
is  an  excellent  state  of  affairs.  You  need  fear  neither 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  213 

popularity  nor  unpopularity,  you  are  above  the  one 
and  the  other.  You  cannot  blunder;  no  blunder  is 
possible  to  the  defender  of  a  lost  cause.  The  advo- 
cate of  misfortune  is  always  eloquent.  When  hope 
has  become  impossible,  you  can  be  a  Royalist  with 
impunity  in  a  Republic.  You  offer  a  calm  opposition 
to  those  in  power;  you  are  liberal;  you  have  the 
sympathy  of  all  enemies  of  the  existing  system,  and 
the  respect  of  the  Government  which  you  harmlessly 
oppose.  As  a  servant  of  the  fallen  Monarchy  the 
veneration  with  which  you  kneel  at  the  feet  of  your 
King  will  emphasize  the  nobility  of  your  character, 
and  without  loss  of  dignity  you  can  lavish  upon  him 
every  sort  of  flattery.  In  the  same  way  you  can, 
without  any  inconvenience,  read  the  Prince  a  lesson, 
speak  to  him  with  brusque  frankness,  reproach  him 
for  his  abdications,  his  alliances,  his  private  coun- 
sellors; you  can  say  to  him,  for  example:  'Mon- 
seigneur,  I  must  warn  you,  with  due  respect,  that 
you  are  keeping  low  company.'  The  papers  will 
seize  upon  these  noble  words ;  the  fame  of  your  devo- 
tion will  increase,  and  you  will  dominate  your  own 
party  from  the  lofty  altitudes  in  which  your  soul  is 
able  to  breathe.  Advocate  or  Deputy,  at  the  Palais 
or  from  the  tribune,  you  will  strike  the  noblest  of 
attitudes;  you  are  incorruptible,  and  the  good 
Fathers  will  protect  you.  Come,  realize  your  good 
fortune,  Lacrisse." 


2i4  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"What  you  say  may  be  funny,  Leon,"  replied 
Lacrisse  coldly,  "but  I  don't  find  it  so.  And  I  doubt 
whether  your  jokes  are  at  all  relevant." 

"I  am  not  joking." 

"Yes,  you  are.  You  are  a  sceptic,  and  I  loathe 
scepticism.  It  is  the  negation  of  action.  I  am  all 
for  action,  always,  and  in  spite  of  all." 

Henri  Leon  protested : 

"I  assure  you  I  am  very  much  in  earnest." 

"Well  then,  my  friend,  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you  that 
you  don't  in  the  least  understand  the  spirit  of  your 
age.  You  have  described  a  worthy  of  the  type  of 
Berryer.  He  would  seem  like  a  man  stepped  out  of 
a  family  portrait.  Your  Royalist  might  have  passed 
muster  under  the  Second  Empire,  but  I  can  assure 
you  that  to-day  he  would  appear  vieux  jeu  and  devil- 
ishly out  of  date.  The  faithful  courtier  would  be 
simply  absurd  in  the  twentieth  century.  One  has  no 
business  to  be  beaten,  and  the  weak  are  always  in 
the  wrong.  That  is  the  way  we  look  at  things,  my 
dear  fellow.  Are  we  for  Poland,  or  Greece,  or  Fin- 
land? No,  no ;  we  don't  dance  to  that  tune.  We  are 
not  simpletons.  We  shouted  'Vivent  les  Boers,'  it's 
true.  But  we  knew  what  we  were  about.  We  wanted 
to  worry  the  Government  by  stirring  up  trouble  with 
England,  and  also  we  hoped  that  the  Boers  would 
win.  However,  I'm  not  discouraged.  I  have  reason 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  215 

to  hope  that  we  shall  overthrow  the  Republic  with 
the  help  of  the  Republicans. 

"What  we  can't  do  alone  we  shall  do  with  Na- 
tionalists of  every  shade  of  opinion.  With  them 
we'll  make  an  end  of  the  Republic.  And  to  begin 
with  we  must  bring  off  the  municipal  elections." 


CHAPTER  XXII 


OSEPH  LACRISSE  had  spoken  the 
truth  when  he  called  himself  a  man 
of  action.  Idleness  was  a  burden  to 
him.  The  Secretary  of  an  extinct 
Royalist  Committee,  he  became  a 
member  of  a  Nationalist  Committee,  which  was  very 
much  alive.  It  was  violent  in  tone,  full  of  a  male- 
volent love  of  France  and  a  destructive  patriotism. 
It  was  continually  organizing  rather  savage  demon- 
strations in  the  theatres  or  the  churches.  Joseph 
Lacrisse  was  the  moving  spirit  of  these  demonstra- 
tions. When  they  took  place  in  a  church,  Madame 
de  Bonmont,  who  was  religiously  inclined,  attended 
them,  dressed  in  dark  colours.  Domus  mea  domus 
orationis.  One  day  after  joining  the  Nationalists 
in  the  Cathedral  in  order  to  pray  in  select  company, 
Madame  de  Bonmont  and  Lacrisse  mingled  with  a 
crowd  of  men  in  the  square  before  the  Cathedral 
who  were  expressing  their  patriotism  by  frantic  and 
concerted  shouts.  Lacrisse  joined  his  voice  to  that 
of  the  crowd,  and  Madame  de  Bonmont  quickened 

216 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  217 

their  courage  by  the  smile  of  her  blue  eyes  and  her 
rosy  lips,  gleaming  behind  her  veil. 

The  noise  was  magnificent  and  formidable,  and  it 
was  growing  even  louder  when,  on  an  order  from  the 
prefecture,  a  squad  of  police  marched  upon  the 
demonstrators.  Lacrisse  watched  them  approaching 
without  surprise,  and  as  soon  as  they  were  within 
hearing  he  shouted,  "Hurrah  for  the  police  1" 

This  enthusiasm  was  not  lacking  in  prudence,  and 
it  was  also  sincere.  Bonds  of  friendship  had  been 
formed  between  the  brigades  of  the  prefecture  and 
the  Nationalist  demonstrators  in  the  ever-to-be- 
regretted  times,  if  I  may  say  so,  of  the  ploughman 
Minister  who  allowed  cudgel-bearing  roughs  to  club 
the  silent  Republicans  in  the  streets.  That  is  what 
he  called  acting  with  moderation.  O  gentle  country 
customs!  O  primitive  simplicity!  O  happy  days! 
Who  knew  you  not  never  knew  the  meaning  of  life ! 
O  simplicity  of  the  man  of  the  open  fields,  who 
vowed  that  the  Republic  had  no  enemies!  Where 
were  the  Royalist  conspirators  and  seditious  monks? 
There  were  none.  He  had  hidden  them  all  under  his 
long  Sunday-go-to-meeting  coat.  Joseph  Lacrisse 
had  not  forgotten  those  happy  days,  and  relying  on 
the  old  alliance  of  rioters  and  police  he  cheered  the 
black  brigades.  Standing  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
Leaguers  he  waved  his  hat  on  the  end  of  his  stick 
in  token  of  peace,  shouting  twenty  times  over, 


218  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Hurrah  for  the  police  I"  But  times  had  changed. 
Indifferent  to  this  friendly  welcome^  deaf  to  these 
flattering  shouts,  the  police  charged.  The  shock  was 
violent.  The  Nationalist  ranks  wavered  and  fell 
back.  Human  affairs  are  subject  to  time's  revenges. 
Lacrisse,  who  had  stopped  cheering  the  attackers 
and  had  replaced  his  hat  on  his  head,  found  it 
knocked  over  his  eyes  by  a  vigorous  blow.  Indignant 
at  the  insult  he  broke  his  stick  over  a  policeman's 
head,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  efforts  of  friends 
who  came  to  his  assistance  he  would  have  been 
marched  off  to  the  police  station  and  thrown  into  a 
cell  like  a  Socialist. 

The  policeman  whose  head  was  cracked  was  taken 
to  the  hospital,  where  he  received  a  silver  medal 
from  the  prefect  of  police. 

Joseph  Lacrisse  was  chosen  by  the  Nationalist 
Committee  for  the  ward  of  the  Grandes-ficuries  as 
their  candidate  at  the  municipal  elections  of  the 
6th  of  May. 

This  was  the  former  Committee  of  Monsieur 
Collinard,  a  Conservative  who  had  been  blackballed 
at  the  preceding  elections,  and  was  not  standing  on 
this  occasion.  The  president  of  the  Committee, 
Monsieur  Bonnaud,  a  pork-butcher,  undertook  to 
assure  Joseph  Lacrisse  of  a  triumphant  return. 

Raimondin,  a  Radical  Republican,  the  retiring 
councillor,  wished  to  be  re-elected,  but  the  electors 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  219 

had  lost  their  faith  in  him.  He  had  disappointed 
every  one,  and  had  neglected  the  interests  of  his 
ward.  He  had  not  even  obtained  the  tramway  which 
had  been  demanded  for  the  last  twelve  years,  and 
was  even  accused  of  favouring  the  Dreyfusards. 

It  was  an  excellent  ward.  The  householders  were 
all  Nationalists,  and  the  tradespeople  severely  con- 
demned the  Waldeck-Millerand  Cabinet.  There 
were  some  Jews  among  them,  but  they  were  anti- 
Semites.  The  religious  communities,  which  were 
both  rich  and  numerous,  would  do  their  best,  and 
the  Fathers  who  had  opened  the  Chapel  of  Saint- 
Antoine  were  especially  to  be  relied  upon.  Success 
was  certain.  It  was  merely  necessary  that  Monsieur 
Lacrisse  should  not  expressly  and  in  so  many  words 
announce  himself  as  a  Royalist,  in  order  to  spare 
the  feelings  of  the  small  shopkeepers,  who  feared  a 
change  of  regime,  particularly  during  the  Exhibition. 

Lacrisse  objected  to  this.  He  was  a  Royalist  and 
did  not  intend  to  put  his  colours  in  his  pocket.  Mon- 
sieur Bonnaud  stuck  to  his  point.  He  knew  the 
elector.  He  knew  what  sort  of  animal  he  was,  and 
how  to  manage  him.  If  Monsieur  Lacrisse  would 
come  forward  as  a  Nationalist  he,  Bonnaud,  would 
win  the  election  for  him.  Otherwise  the  thing  was 
impossible. 

Joseph  Lacrisse  was  puzzled,  and  wondered 
whether  he  should  write  to  the  King  about  the  mat- 


220  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

ter.  But  time  pressed,  and,  besides,  how  could 
Philippe  at  such  a  distance  be  a  competent  judge  of 
his  own  interests?  Lacrisse  consulted  his  friends. 

"Our  strength  lies  in  our  principles,"  replied 
Henri  Leon.  "A  Monarchist  cannot  call  himself  a 
Republican,  even  during  the  Exhibition.  But  they 
are  not  asking  you  to  call  yourself  a  Republican. 
They  do  not  even  ask  you  to  call  yourself  a  Repub- 
lican Progressive,  or  a  Republican  Liberal,  which 
is  quite  another  thing  than  a  Republican.  They  are 
asking  you  to  call  yourself  a  Nationalist.  You  can 
do  that  in  all  honesty,  for  you  are  a  Nationalist. 
Don't  hesitate.  Success  depends  upon  it,  and  it  is  of 
importance  to  the  good  cause  that  you  should  be 
elected." 

Joseph  Lacrisse  gave  in  out  of  patriotism,  writing 
to  the  Prince  to  explain  the  situation  and  to  assure 
him  of  his  devotion. 

The  terms  of  the  programme  were  drawn  up 
without  difficulty.  The  National  Army  was  to  be 
defended  against  a  mob  of  maniacs.  Cosmopoli- 
tanism was  to  be  combated.  Paternal  rights,  jeop- 
ardized by  the  Government's  proposal  in  respect  of 
the  Universities,  were  to  be  upheld.  The  peril  of 
Collectivism  was  to  be  averted.  A  tramway  was  to 
connect  the  Grandes-ficuries  with  the  Exhibition. 
The  banner  of  France  was  to  be  held  high,  and  the 
water  supply  improved. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  221 

There  was  no  question  of  a  plebiscite;  people  did 
not  know  what  it  was  in  the  Grandes-ficuries  ward. 
Joseph  Lacrisse  had  not  the  trouble  of  reconciling 
his  doctrine,  which  was  that  of  Divine  Right,  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  Sovereignty  of  the  People. 
Though  he  admired  and  loved  Deroulede,  he  did  not 
blindly  follow  him. 

"I  will  have  tricolour  posters,"  he  said  to 
Monsieur  Bonnaud.  "It  will  look  well,  and  we  must 
neglect  nothing  that  will  take  the  people's  fancy." 

Bonnaud  approved  of  this;  but  Raimondin,  the 
retiring  councillor,  having  managed  to  secure,  at  the 
last  moment,  the  establishment  of  a  steam-tramway 
from  the  Grandes-ficuries  to  the  Trocadero,  was 
publishing  broadcast  the  news  of  his  success.  He, 
too,  praised  the  Army  in  his  circulars,  and  spoke  of 
the  wonders  of  the  Exhibition  as  the  triumph  of  the 
industrial  and  commercial  genius  of  France  and  the 
glory  of  Paris.  He  was  becoming  a  formidable  rival. 

Feeling  that  the  struggle  would  be  a  hard  one,  the 
Nationalists  did  everything  in  their  power  to  stimu- 
late the  courage  of  their  adherents.  They  accused 
Raimondin,  at  innumerable  meetings,  of  having  al- 
lowed his  old  mother  to  die  of  starvation  and  of 
having  voted  that  the  municipality  should  subscribe 
for  Urbain  Gohier's  book. 

Every  night  they  attacked  Raimondin,  the  candi- 
date of  the  Jews  and  Panamists.  A  group  of  Re- 


222  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

publican  Progressives  was  formed  to  support  Joseph 
Lacrisse,  and  published  the  following  manifesto : 

To  the  Electors 

"GENTLEMEN, 

"The  critical  circumstances  through  which  we 
are  now  passing  make  it  our  duty  to  ask  of  the  can- 
didates at  the  forthcoming  municipal  elections  a 
statement  of  their  opinion  as  to  the  general  policy, 
on  which  the  future  of  the  country  depends.  At 
an  hour  when  some  deluded  persons  entertain  the 
criminal  hope  of  stirring  up  an  unseemly  agitation 
calculated  to  weaken  our  beloved  country,  at  an  hour 
when  Collectivism,  audaciously  installed  in  power, 
threatens  our  property,  the  sacred  fruit  of  our  thrift 
and  labour;  at  an  hour  when  a  Government  estab- 
lished against  public  opinion  is  preparing  tyrannical 
laws,  you  will  all  vote  for 

"M.  JOSEPH  LACRISSE, 

"Advocate  in  the  Court  of  Appeal, 
"Candidate  for  the  Liberty  of  Con- 
science   of   an   honest    Republic." 

The  Nationalist  Socialists  of  the  ward  had  thought 
at  first  of  choosing  their  own  candidates,  whose 
votes,  at  the  second  scrutiny,  would  have  gone  to 
Lacrisse,  but  the  danger  was  so  imminent  as  to  neces- 
sitate union.  So  the  Nationalist  Socialists  of  the 
Grandes-ficuries  rallied  round  Lacrisse,  and  made 
the  following  appeal  to  the  electors: 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  223 

"CITIZENS, 

"We  commend  to  you  the  definitely  Repub- 
lican, Socialist  and  Nationalist  candidate, 

"CITIZEN  LACRISSE. 

"Down  with  the  traitors!  Down  with  the 
Dreyfusards !  Down  with  the  Panamists !  Down 
with  the  Jews!  Long  live  the  National-Socialist 
Republic!" 

The  Fathers,  who  possessed  a  chapel  and  an 
enormous  amount  of  house-property  in  the  ward, 
strictly  refrained  from  meddling  in  electoral  affairs. 
They  were  too  obedient  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  to 
infringe  his  orders,  and  absorption  in  the  works  of 
piety  kept  them  far  removed  from  mundane  affairs. 
But  some  of  their  lay  friends  composed  a  circular 
which  exactly  expressed  the  thoughts  of  the  worthy 
Fathers.  Here  is  the  text  of  this  circular,  which 
was  distributed  throughout  the  ward: 

"The  Charity  of  ST.  ANTHONY,  for  the  restora- 
tion of  lost  property,  jewels,  valuables  and  objects 
of  every  description,  such  as  land,  houses,  furniture, 
money,  feelings,  affections,  etc.,  etc. 

"GENTLEMEN, 

"It  is  chiefly  during  elections  that  the  devil 
attempts  to  trouble  our  consciences.  And  to  attain 
this  object  he  has  recourse  to  innumerable  devices. 
Alas,  has  he  not  in  his  service  the  whole  army  of  the 
Freemasons?  But  you  will  know  how  to  defeat  the 


224  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

wiles  of  the  enemy.  You  will  reject  with  horror  and 
disgust  the  candidate  of  the  incendiaries,  the  burners 
of  churches  and  other  Dreyfusards. 

"It  is  only  by  placing  righteous  men  in  power  that 
you  will  put  an  end  to  the  abominable  persecution 
which  is  so  cruelly  being  undertaken  at  the  present 
moment,  and  will  prevent  an  iniquitous  Government 
from  laying  its  hands  upon  the  money  of  the  poor. 
Vote  for 

"M.  JOSEPH  LACRISSE, 

"Advocate  in  the  Court  of  Appeal, 
"St.  Anthony's  Candidate. 

"Gentlemen,  do  not  grieve  the  good  St.  Anthony 
by  inflicting  upon  him  the  unmerited  grief  of  seeing 
his  candidate  defeated. 

"Signed:  Ribagou,  advocate;  Wertheimer,  publi- 
cist; Florimond,  architect;  Beche,  retired  captain; 
Molon,  artisan." 

These  documents  will  suffice  to  show  to  what  in- 
tellectual and  moral  heights  Nationalism  elevated 
the  discussion  of  the  candidates  for  the  Municipal 
Council  of  Paris. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


OSEPH  LACRISSE,  the  Nationalist 
candidate,  was  carrying  on  an  active 
campaign  in  the  Grandes-ficuries 
ward  against  the  outgoing  councillor, 
Anselme  Raimondin.  From  the  first 
he  felt  at  his  ease  in  the  public  meetings  at  which 
he  spoke.  Being  a  lawyer  and  very  ignorant,  he 
spoke  profusely,  and  nothing  ever  stopped  him. 
The  rapidity  of  his  delivery  astonished  the  electors, 
with  whom  he  was  in  sympathy  because  of  the 
scarcity  and  simplicity  of  his  ideas,  and  what  he  said 
was  always  what  they  would  have  said  themselves, 
or  at  least  would  have  tried  to  say.  He  was  always 
speaking  of  his  honesty,  and  of  the  honesty  of  his 
political  friends;  he  insisted  that  they  must  elect 
honest  men,  and  that  his  party  was  the  party  of 
honest  men.  As  it  was  a  new  party,  the  people  be- 
lieved him. 

Anselme  Raimondin,  at  his  meetings,  replied  that 
he  himself  was  honest,  extremely  honest,  but  his 
protestations,  coming  after  the  others,  seemed  tedi- 
ous. Since  he  had  already  been  a  councillor  and  had 


226  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

experience  of  municipal  affairs,  the  electors  did  not 
find  it  easy  to  believe  in  his  honesty,  whereas  Joseph 
Lacrisse  was  dazzling  in  his  innocence. 

Lacrisse  was  young,  brisk,  and  had  a  soldierly 
appearance.  Raimondin  was  short  and  stout,  and 
wore  spectacles.  This  difference  was  remarked 
upon  at  a  moment  when  Nationalism  had  breathed 
into  municipal  elections  some  of  the  enthusiasm  and 
poetry  which  are  inseparable  from  it,  together  with 
an  ideal  of  beauty  perceptible  to  the  small  shop- 
keeper. 

Joseph  Lacrisse  was  totally  ignorant  of  all  ques- 
tions concerning  civic  affairs,  even  to  the  attributions 
of  municipal  councils.  This  ignorance  was  useful  to 
him.  His  eloquence  was  thereby  the  freer  and  more 
stirring.  Anselme  Raimondin,  on  the  contrary,  lost 
himself  in  the  mazes  of  detail.  He  was  accustomed 
to  the  use  of  business  expressions,  and  to  technical 
discussions;  he  had  a  love  of  figures,  and  a  passion 
for  documents,  and  although  he  knew  his  public  he 
laboured  under  certain  illusions  with  regard  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  electors  who  had  nominated  him. 
He  had  a  certain  amount  of  respect  for  them;  he 
dared  not  lie  too  grossly,  and  did  his  best  to  enter 
into  explanations.  All  this  made  him  appear  cold, 
obscure  and  tedious. 

He  was  no  simpleton.  He  knew  where  lay  his 
interests,  and  he  understood  minor  politics.  For 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  227 

two  years  his  district  had  been  submerged  by  Nation- 
alist newspapers,  posters  and  pamphlets;  and  he 
told  himself  that  when  the  moment  came  he,  too, 
could  pretend  to  be  a  Nationalist,  that  it  wasn't  so 
difficult  to  demolish  traitors  and  acclaim  the  National 
Army.  He  had  not  feared  his  enemies  sufficiently, 
thinking  that  he  could  always  do  as  they  did,  in 
which  he  was  mistaken.  Joseph  Lacrisse  had  an 
inimitable  genius  for  expressing  the  Nationalist 
ideal.  He  had  hit  upon  one  special  sentence  which 
he  frequently  employed,  and  which  always  seemed 
new  and  beautiful.  It  was  this:  "Citizens,  let  us 
all  rise  to  defend  our  admirable  Army  against  a 
handful  of  cosmopolitans  who  have  sworn  to  destroy 
it."  This  was  just  the  thing  to  say  to  the  electors 
of  the  Grandes-ficuries.  Repeated  nightly,  the  sen- 
tence aroused  the  whole  meeting  to  great  and  for- 
midable enthusiasm.  Anselme  Raimondin  did  not 
hit  upon  anything  nearly  so  good;  if  patriotic  phrases 
occurred  to  him  he  did  not  deliver  them  in  the  right 
tone,  and  they  produced  no  effect. 

Lacrisse  covered  the  walls  with  tricolour  posters. 
Anselme  Raimondin  also  made  use  of  tricolour 
posters,  but  either  the  colours  were  too  washy  or 
the  sun  faded  them;  at  all  events,  his  posters  had 
a  pallid  appearance.  Everything  played  him  false, 
every  one  abandoned  him.  He  lost  his  assurance; 
he  humbled  himself,  showed  himself  prudent  and 


228  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

humble.  He  shrank  from  notice ;  he  became  almost 
imperceptible. 

Again,  when  he  stood  up  to  speak  in  the  dancing- 
hall  of  some  third-rate  drinking-house  he  seemed 
like  a  pale  phantom  from  which  proceeded  a  feeble 
voice  drowned  by  pipe-smoke  and  the  interruptions 
of  the  audience.  He  recalled  his  past.  He  had 
always  been  a  fighter,  he  said.  He  stood  up  for  the 
Republic ;  this  remark,  like  the  preceding  one,  caused 
no  sensation,  had  no  sonorous  echo.  The  electors 
of  the  Grandes-ficuries  ward  wanted  the  Republic 
to  be  defended  by  Joseph  Lacrisse,  who  had  con- 
spired against  her.  That  was  what  they  wanted. 

The  meeting  did  not  discuss  both  sides  of  the 
question.  Only  once  was  Raimondin  invited  to  put 
in  an  appearance  at  a  Nationalist  meeting.  He 
went;  but  he  was  not  allowed  to  speak;  and  was 
utterly  crushed  by  a  resolution  put  and  carried  amid 
darkness  and  disorder,  for  the  landlord  had  cut  off 
the  gas  as  soon  as  the  people  started  breaking  up 
the  benches.  The  meetings  in  the  Grandes-ficuries 
ward,  as  in  all  the  other  wards  of  Paris,  were  only 
moderately  rowdy.  The  people  now  and  then  dis- 
played the  languid  violence  peculiar  to  their  day, 
which  is  the  most  noticeable  characteristic  of  our 
political  manners.  The  Nationalists,  according  to 
their  habit,  hurled  forth  the  same  monotonous  in- 
sults in  which  the  expressions  "Spy,"  "Traitor"  and 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  229 

"Rogue"  had  a  feeble,  exhausted  sound.  Their 
slogans  told  of  an  extreme  physical  and  moral  ener- 
vation, a  vague  discontent  combined  with  profound 
lethargy,  and  a  definite  inability  to  think  out  the 
simplest  problems.  There  were  many  insults  and 
few  blows.  It  was  unusual  if  more  than  two  or 
three  per  night  were  wounded  or  knocked  about, 
counting  both  parties.  Lacrisse's  wounded  were 
taken  to  the  Nationalist  chemist  Delapierre,  next 
door  to  the  riding-school,  and  Raimondin's  to  the 
Radical  chemist  Job,  opposite  the  market-place,  and 
by  midnight  there  was  not  a  soul  left  in  the  streets. 

On  Sunday,  May  the  6th,  at  six  o'clock,  Joseph 
Lacrisse,  accompanied  by  his  friends,  was  awaiting 
the  result  of  the  ballot  in  an  empty  shop  decorated 
with  flags  and  placards.  This  was  their  chief  Com- 
mittee Room.  The  pork-butcher,  Monsieur  Bon- 
naud,  arrived,  and  announced  that  Lacrisse  was 
elected  by  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  nine 
votes  against  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  four- 
teen for  Monsieur  Raimondin. 

"Citizen,"  said  Bonnaud,  "we  are  much  gratified. 
It  is  a  victory  for  the  Republic." 

"And  for  honest  men,"  replied  Lacrisse,  adding 
with  dignified  benevolence :  "I  thank  you,  Monsieur 
Bonnaud,  and  I  beg  you  to  thank  in  my  name  our 
valiant  friends."  Then,  turning  to  Henri  Leon 


230  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

who  stood  beside  him,  he  whispered,  "Leon,  do  me1 
a  favour,  will  you?  Wire  our  success  at  once  to 
Monseigneur." 

Shouts  were  heard  from  the  street. 

"Long  live  Deroulede!  Long  live  the  Army! 
Long  live  the  Republic!  Down  with  the  Jews!" 

Lacrisse  entered  his  carriage  amid  the  cheers  of 
the  crowd  that  barred  his  passage.    Baron  Golsberg 
the  Jew,  was  standing  at  the  carriage  door;  he  seized 
the  new  councillor's  hand : 

"I  gave  you  my  vote,  Monsieur  Lacrisse.  You 
understand,  I  gave  you  my  vote,  because,  I  tell  you, 
anti-Semitism  is  mere  humbug — you  know  it  as  well 

as  I  do — mere  humbug,  while  Socialism  is  a  serious 
t 

matter." 

"Yes,  yes.     Good-bye,  Monsieur  Golsberg." 

But  the  Baron  still  held  on. 

"Socialism  is  the  danger.  Monsieur  Raimondin 
favoured  concessions  to  the  Collectivists.  That's 
why  I  voted  for  you,  Monsieur  Lacrisse." 

And  still  the  crowd  yelled: 

"Hurrah  for  Deroulede !  Hurrah  for  the  Army! 
Down  with  the  Dreyfusards  I  Down  with  Raimon- 
din I  Death  to  the  Jews !" 

The  coachman  succeeded  in  making  a  way  through 
the  mass  of  electors. 

Joseph  Lacrisse  found  Madame  de  Bonmont  at 


home,  alone.  She  was  excited  and  triumphant,  hav- 
ing already  heard  the  news. 

"Elected!"  she  cried,  her  arms  extended  and  her 
gaze  directed  heavenward. 

And  the  word  "elected"  on  the  lips  of  so  pious 
a  lady  seemed  full  of  mystical  meaning. 

She  put  her  beautiful  arms  around  him  and  drew 
him  to  her. 

"What  makes  me  happiest  is  that  you  owe  your 
election  to  me." 

She  had  contributed  nothing  to  his  expenses.  It 
is  true  that  money  had  not  been  wanting,  and  Joseph 
Lacrisse  had  drawn  upon  more  than  one  banking 
account;  but  the  gentle  Elisabeth  had  given  nothing, 
and  Joseph  Lacrisse  could  not  understand  what  she 
meant.  She  explained  herself: 

"I  had  a  candle  burnt  every  day  before  St. 
Anthony;  that  is  why  you  got  in.  St.  Anthony 
grants  all  requests.  Father  Adeodat  told  me  so, 
and  I  have  proved  it  several  times." 

She  covered  his  face  with  kisses,  and  a  beautiful 
idea  occurred  to  her,  which  reminded  her  of  the 
customs  of  chivalry. 

"My  dear,"  she  asked  him,  "do  not  municipal 
councillors  wear  a  scarf?  an  embroidered  scarf,  isn't 
it?  I'll  embroider  one  for  you." 

He  was  very  tired  and  fell  exhausted  into  a  chair, 
but  kneeling  at  his  feet  she  murmured : 


232  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"I  love  you." 

And  only  the  darkness  heard  the  rest. 


The  same  evening,  in  his  modest  apartments — 
the  apartments  of  "a  child  of  the  quarter,"  as  he 
called  them — Anselme  Raimondin  heard  the  result 
of  the  election.  There  were  some  dozen  bottles  of 
wine  and  a  cold  pate  on  the  dining-room  table.  His 
failure  amazed  him. 

"It  was  only  what  I  expected,"  he  said. 

And  he  swung  round  in  a  pirouette,  but  he  was 
clumsy  and  twisted  his  ankle. 

"It's  your  own  fault,"  said  Dr.  Maufle,  by  way 
of  consolation.  The  Doctor  was  president  of  his 
Committee,  an  old  Radical,  with  the  face  of  a 
Silenus.  "You  allowed  the  Nationalists  to  poison 
the  whole  ward;  you  hadn't  the  pluck  to  stand  up 
against  them.  You  made  no  attempt  to  unmask 
their  falsehoods.  On  the  contrary,  like  them,  with 
them,  you  told  every  lie  you  could  think  of.  You 
knew  the  truth,  and  you  dared  not  undeceive  the 
electors  while  there  was  still  time.  You've  funked 
it,  and  you  are  beaten,  and  it  serves  you  right!" 

Anselme  Raimondin  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"You  are  a  silly  old  fool,  Maufle.  You  don't 
understand  the  ins  and  outs  of  this  election.  Yet 
it's  clear  enough.  My  failure  was  due  to  one  thing 
only:  the  discontent  of  the  small  shopkeepers  who 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  233 

arc  being  crushed  out  of  existence  between  the  big 
shops  and  the  co-operative  societies.     They  are  suf- 
fering and  they  made  me  pay  for  it.    That's  all." 
Then,  with  a  faint  smile,  he  added: 
"They'll  find  themselves  nicely  taken  in." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

EETING  his  pupils  Goubin  and 
Denis,  on  one  of  the  paths  of 
the  Luxembourg  garden,  Monsieur 
Bergeret  said : 

"I  have  good  news  for  you,  gen- 
tlemen.    The  peace  of  Europe  will  not  be  disturbed. 
The  Trublions  themselves  have  assured  me  of  it." 
And  Monsieur  Bergeret  went  on  to  relate  the 
following  story : 

"I  met  Jean  Coq,  Jean  Mouton,  Jean  Laiglon 
and  Gilles  Singe  at  the  Exhibition,  where  they  were 
listening  to  the  creaking  of  the  footbridges.  Jean 
Coq  came  up  to  me,  and  said  sternly:  'Monsieur 
Bergeret,  you  said  that  we  wanted  war,  and  that  we 
should  make  war,  that  Jean  Mouton  and  I  were 
going  to  land  at  Dover  with  an  army  and  occupy 
London,  and  that  then  I  should  take  Berlin  and 
various  other  capitals.  You  said  this,  I  know.  You 
said  it  with  malicious  intent  to  harm  us  and  make 
the  French  nation  believe  that  we  desire  war.  Un- 
derstand, monsieur,  that  this  is  a  lie.  Our  tendencies 
are  not  war-like;  they  are  military,  which  is  quite 

234 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  235 

another  thing.  We  desire  peace,  and  when  we  have 
established  the  Imperial  Republic  in  France  we  shall 
not  go  to  war.' 

"I  told  Jean  Coq  that  I  was  quite  ready  to  believe 
him,  and,  what  was  more,  that  I  saw  that  I  had 
been  mistaken  and  that  my  mistake  was  obvious; 
that  Jean  Coq,  Jean  Mouton,  Jean  Laiglon  and 
Gilles  Singe  had  sufficiently  proved  their  love  of 
peace  by  refusing  to  go  and  fight  in  China,  whither 
they  had  been  invited  by  beautiful  white  placards. 
'From  that  time  forth,'  said  I,  'I  realized  the  truly 
civil  nature  of  your  military  sentiments,  and  the 
strength  of  your  love  for  your  country.  You  could 
not  leave  the  soil  of  France.  I  beg  you  to  accept 
my  apologies,  Monsieur  Coq.  I  rejoice  to  see  that 
you  are  as  peacefully  disposed  as  I.' 

"Jean  Coq  looked  at  me  with  that  eye  that  causes 
the  world  to  tremble:  'I  am  peacefully  disposed, 
Monsieur  Bergeret,  but,  thank  God,  not  as  you  are. 
The  peace  I  desire  is  not  your  peace.  You  are 
slavishly  content  with  the  peace  that  is  forced  upon 
us  to-day.  Our  spirit  is  too  great  to  endure  it  with- 
out impatience.  This  feeble  enervating  peace  which 
satisfies  you,  cruelly  wounds  the  pride  of  our  hearts. 
When  we  are  the  masters  we  shall  make  another 
peace;  a  terrible,  clanking,  spurred  and  booted, 
equestrian  peace !  We  shall  make  a  pitiless,  savage 
peace,  a  threatening,  horrible,  blazing  peace;  a 


236  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

peace  worthy  of  us;  a  peace  which,  more  frightful 
than  the  most  frightful  war,  will  freeze  the  world 
with  terror  and  kill  all  the  English  by  inhibition. 
That,  Monsieur  Bergeret,  is  our  manner  of  being 
pacific.  In  two  or  three  months'  time  our  peace  will 
burst  upon  the  world  and  will  set  it  in  a  blaze.' 

"After  this  speech  I  was  forced  to  admit  that 
the  Trublions  were  peacefully  disposed,  and  thus 
was  confirmed  the  truth  of  the  oracle  written  upon 
an  ancient  sycamore  leaf  by  the  sibyl  of  Panzoust: 

'  'Toi  qui  de  vent  te  repais, 
Troublion,  ma  petite  outre, 
Si  vraiment  tu  veux  la  paix, 
Commence  par  nous  la  f  .  .  .'  " 


CHAPTER  XXV 

IADAME  DE  BONMONT'S  salon 
had  been  unusually  lively  and  bril- 
liant since  the  victory  of  the  Nation- 
alists in  Paris  and  the  election  of 
Joseph  Lacrisse  for  the  ward  of  the 
Grandes-ficuries.  The  widow  of  the  great  Baron 
received  at  her  house  the  flower  of  the  new  party. 
An  old  Rabbi  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  believed 
that  the  gentle  Elisabeth  attracted  to  herself  the 
enemies  of  the  chosen  people  by  a  special  decree  of 
the  God  of  Israel.  The  hand,  he  thought,  that 
placed  Esther  in  the  bed  of  Ahasuerus  had  been 
pleased  to  gather  together  the  chiefs  of  the  anti- 
Semites  and  the  princes  of  the  Trublions  in  the  house 
of  a  Jewess.  It  is  true  that  the  Baronne  had  re- 
nounced the  faith  of  her  fathers,  but  who  can  fathom 
the  designs  of  Jehovah !  In  the  eyes  of  the  artists, 
who,  like  Fremont,  bethought  themselves  of  the 
mythological  figures  in  the  palaces  of  Germany,  her 
sumptuous  beauty,  the  beauty  of  a  Viennese  Erigone, 
seemed  symbolical  of  the  Nationalist  vintage. 
Her  dinners  diffused  an  atmosphere  of  delight  and 
337 


238  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

power,  and  the  smallest  luncheon  party  at  her  house 
had  a  truly  national  significance.  Thus,  this  morn- 
ing she  had  gathered  together  at  her  table  the  most 
famous  defenders  of  the  Church  and  Army.  There 
was  Henri  Leon,  Vice-President  of  the  Royalist 
Committees  of  the  South-West,  who  had  come  to 
congratulate  the  Nationalists  elected  in  Paris;  Cap- 
tain de  Chalmot,  the  son  of  General  Cartier  de 
Chalmot,  with  his  young  American  wife,  who  twit- 
tered to  such  an  extent  as  she  expressed  her  Nation- 
alist propensities  that  one  would  have  thought  the 
very  birds  in  their  cages  were  taking  part  in  our 
human  disputes ;  Monsieur  Tonnellier,  the  suspended 
professor  of  the  fifth  form  at  the  Lycee  Sully,  who, 
as  every  one  knows,  had  been  convicted  of  defend- 
ing, to  his  young  pupils,  an  assault  committed  upon 
the  person  of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  had  been 
condemned  to  pay  a  fine  and  was  forthwith  received 
in  the  best  society,  where  he  behaved  very  well, 
except  that  he  was  rather  given  to  playing  upon 
words ;  Fremont,  an  old  Communard  and  an  Inspec- 
tor of  the  Fine  Arts,  who  as  he  grew  older  became 
wonderfully  reconciled  to  bourgeois  and  capitalist 
society,  assiduously  frequenting  the  houses  of  wealthy 
Jews,  the  guardians  of  the  treasures  of  Christian 
art,  and  would  gladly  have  lived  under  the  dictator- 
ship of  a  horse  so  long  as  he  could  spend  the  day 
caressing,  with  his  delicate  hands,  finely  wrought 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  239 

bibelots  of  precious  material;  and  the  old  Comte 
Davant,  dyed,  waxed  and  varnished,  handsome  still, 
a  trifle  morose,  who  remembered  the  golden  age  of 
the  Jews  when  he  supplied  the  great  financiers  with 
furniture  by  Riesener  and  bronzes  by  Thomyres. 
When  acting  as  the  Baron's  collector  he  had  gathered 
together  fifteen  millions'  worth  of  old  furniture  and 
objects  of  art.  To-day,  ruined  by  unfortunate  specu- 
lation, he  lived  among  the  sons,  regretting  the 
fathers,  a  sad,  bitter  old  man,  one  of  the  most  inso- 
lent of  parasites,  insolence,  as  he  well  knew,  being 
a  parasite's  main  passport  to  favour.  She  had  also 
invited  Jacques  de  Cadde,  one  of  the  promoters 
of  the  Henry  subscription  list;  Philippe  Dellion, 
Astolphe  de  Courtrai,  Hugues  Chassons  des  Aigues, 
President  of  the  Nationalist  Committee  of  Celle- 
Saint-Cloud,  and  Jambe-d' Argent  in  breeches  and 
waistcoat  of  homespun,  the  white  armlet  with  the 
golden  lilies  on  his  arm,  and  a  wild  shock  of  hair 
under  his  round  hat,  which,  like  his  chaplet  of  olive- 
stones,  he  never  removed.  He  was  a  Montmartre 
singer,  by  name  Dupont,  who  having  become  a 
Chouan  was  received  in  the  best  society.  He  was 
taking  a  snack,  with  an  old  flint-gun  between  his  legs, 
drinking  copiously.  Since  the  Affair  a  new  classi- 
fication had  occurred  in  aristocratic  French  Society. 
Young  Baron  Ernest  sat  facing  his  mother  in  the 


24o  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

chair  set  for  the  master  of  the  house.  The  conver- 
sation turned  on  politics. 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde  to 
Philippe  Dellion.  "Believe  me,  you  are  wrong  not 
to  employ  Father  Francois'  move.  No  one  knows 
what  may  happen  after  the  Exhibition  and  as  soon 
as  we  begin  to  hold  public  meetings." 

"One  thing  is  certain,"  said  Astolphe  de  Courtrai, 
"and  that  is  if  we  want  to  do  well  in  the  elections 
in  twenty  months'  time  we  must  prepare  to  begin 
a  campaign.  I  can  promise  you  that  I  shall  be 
ready,  I'm  working  hard  every  day  at  boxing  and 
single-stick." 

"Who's  your  trainer?"  asked  Dellion. 

"Gaudibert.  He  has  brought  French  boxing  to 
perfection.  It's  astonishing.  He  has  some  exqui- 
site foot-work,  some  coups  de  savate,  quite  of  his 
own.  He's  a  first-class  teacher,  and  understands  the 
tremendous  importance  of  training." 

"Training  is  everything,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde. 

"Of  course,"  continued  Courtrai.  "And  Gaudi- 
bert has  superior  methods  of  training,  a  whole  sys- 
tem, based  on  experience.  Massage,  friction  and 
dieting  followed  by  plenty  of  nourishment.  His 
motto  is :  'Keep  down  fat,  build  up  muscle.'  And  in 
six  months,  my  friends,  he  makes  you  a  first-rate 
boxer,  and  gives  your  punch  an  elasticity  and  your 
kick  a  suppleness " 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  241 

Madame  de  Chalmot  inquired: 

"Can  you  overthrow  this  feeble  Ministry?" 

And  at  the  bare  idea  of  the  Waldeck  Cabinet 
she  indignantly  shook  her  pretty  head — the  head  of 
an  infant  Samuel. 

"Do  not  distress  yourself,  madame,"  said  Lacrisse. 
"This  Ministry  will  be  replaced  by  another  just 
like  it." 

"Another  Ministry  of  Republican  spendthrifts," 
said  Monsieur  Tonnellier.  "France  will  be  ruined." 

"Yes,"  said  Leon,  "another  Ministry  just  like 
this  one.  But  the  new  Ministry  will  be  less  un- 
popular, for  it  will  no  longer  be  the  Ministry  of  the 
Affair.  We  shall  need  a  campaign  of  at  least  six 
weeks  with  all  our  newspapers  to  make  it  hateful  to 
the  people." 

"Have  you  been  to  the  Petit  Palais,  madame?" 
said  Fremont  to  the  Baronne. 

She  replied  that  she  had  been  there  and  had  seen 
some  beautiful  caskets  and  some  pretty  dance- 
engagement  books. 

"fimile  Moliner,"  replied  the  Inspector  of  Fine 
Arts,  "has  organized  an  admirable  exhibition  of 
French  art.  The  Middle  Ages  are  represented  by 
the  most  valuable  examples.  The  eighteenth  cen- 
tury takes  an  honourable  position  too,  but  there  is 
still  space  to  fill  up.  You,  madame,  who  possess  so 


242  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

many  treasures  will  not  refuse  us  the  loan  of  some 
of  your  masterpieces." 

It  is  true  that  the  great  Barorl  had  left  his  widow 
many  art  treasures.  For  him  the  Comte  Davant 
had  ransacked  all  the  provincial  chateaux  on  the 
banks  of  the  Somme,  Loire  and  Rhone,  and  had 
wrested  from  ignorant,  needy  and  whiskered  gentle- 
men portraits  of  ancestors,  historic  furniture,  gifts 
from  kings  to  their  mistresses,  imposing  souvenirs 
of  the  Monarchy,  the  treasured  possessions  of  the 
most  illustrious  families.  In  her  castle  at  Montil 
and  her  house  in  the  Avenue  Marceau  she  had  ex- 
amples of  the  work  of  the  finest  French  cabinet- 
makers and  of  the  greatest  wood-carvers  of  the 
eighteenth  century:  chests  of  drawers,  cabinets  for 
medals,  secretaries,  clocks  of  all  descriptions,  candle- 
sticks and  exquisite  faded  tapestries.  But  although 
Fremont,  and  Terremondre  before  him,  had  begged 
her  to  send  some  pieces  of  furniture,  bronzes  or 
hangings  to  the  coming  Exhibition,  she  had  always 
refused.  Vain  of  her  riches  and  anxious  to  display 
them  she  had  not  intended,  on  this  occasion,  to  lend 
anything.  Joseph  Lacrisse  encouraged  her  in  this 
refusal :  "Have  nothing  to  do  with  their  Exhibition. 
Your  things  will  be  stolen  or  burned.  And  who 
knows  if  they  will  ever  succeed  in  organizing  their 
international  fair?  It's  better  to  have  nothing  to 
do  with  people  like  that." 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  243 

Fremont,  who  had  already  been  refused  on  several 
occasions,  persisted: 

"You,  madame,  who  possess  such  beautiful  things 
and  are  so  worthy  of  possessing  them,  snow  yourself 
to  be  what  you  are,  liberal,  generous  and  patriotic, 
for  patriotism  also  is  involved  in  this  matter.  Send 
to  the  Petit  Palais  your  Riesener  cabinet  decorated 
with  Sevres  in  pate  tendre.  With  such  a  treasure 
you  need  fear  no  rival,  for  its  equal  is  only  to  be 
found  in  England.  We  will  put  upon  it  your  porce- 
lain vases,  which  belonged  to  the  Grand  Dauphin, 
those  two  marvellous  sea-green  vases  mounted  in 
bronze  by  Caffieri.  It  will  be  dazzling!" 

The  Comte  Davant  interrupted  him: 

"The  mounts,"  he  said  in  a  tone  of  melancholy 
wisdom,  "are  not  by  Philippe  Caffieri.  They  are 
marked  with  a  'C  surmounted  by  a  lily.  That  is 
Cresscnt's  mark.  You  may  not  know  it,  but  you 
cannot  deny  it." 

"Madame,  display  your  magnificence  I  Add  to 
this  your  tapestry  by  Leprince,  La  Fiancee  moscovite, 
and  you  will  deserve  the  gratitude  of  the  whole 
nation." 

She  was  ready  to  give  way.  But  before  consent- 
ing she  questioned  Lacrisse  with  a  look.  He  said: 

"Lend  them  your  eighteenth-century  stuff,  as  they 
have  none." 


244  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Then,  out  of  deference  to  the  Comte  Davant,  she 
asked  him  what  she  should  do.  He  replied : 

"Do  as  you  like.  I  have  no  advice  to  give  you. 
It  will  be  all  the  same  whether  you  send  or  do  not 
send  your  things  to  the  Exhibition.  Rien  ne  fait 
rlen,  as  my  old  friend  Theophile  Gautier  used  to 
say." 

"That's  done  I"  thought  Fremont.  "I'll  go  pres- 
ently and  tell  the  Ministry  that  I've  managed  to 
secure  the  Bonmont  collection.  It's  well  worth  the 
rosette." 

And  he  smiled  to  himself.  He  was  no  fool,  but 
he  did  not  despise  social  distinctions,  and  it  struck 
him  as  piquant  that  a  man  who  had  been  imprisoned 
as  a  Communard  should  be  made  an  officer  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour. 

"I  must  go,"  said  Lacrisse.  "I've  got  to  prepare 
the  speech  for  the  banquet  of  the  Grandes-ficuries 
next  Sunday." 

"Oh,"  sighed  the  Baronne,  "I  shouldn't  trouble 
to  do  that.  It's  not  necessary,  you  extemporize  so 
wonderfully." 

"Besides,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde, 
"it's  not  a  difficult  matter  to  address  electors." 

"Not  difficult  exactly,"  said  the  chosen  candidate, 
"but  delicate.  Our  enemies  complain  that  we  have 
no  programme.  That  is  not  true,  we  have  a  pro- 
gramme, but " 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  245 

"Pheasant  shooting,  that's  the  programme,  mes- 
sieurs," said  Jambe-d'Argent. 

"But  the  elector,"  continued  Joseph  Lacrisse,  "is 
of  a  more  complex  nature  than  one  would  at  first 
suppose.  For  instance,  I've  been  elected  to  the 
Grandes-ficuries  by  the  Monarchists,  of  course,  and 
by  the  Bonapartists,  and  also  by  the — what  shall  I 
call  them? — by  the  Republicans  who  are  sick  of  the 
Republic  but  who  still  remain  Republicans.  That 
is  a  state  of  mind  not  infrequently  met  with  in  Paris 
among  the  small  tradespeople.  Thus  the  pork- 
butcher  who  presides  over  my  Committee  shouts  in 
my  face :  'I've  done  with  the  Republic  of  the  Repub- 
licans. If  I  could,  I'd  blow  it  up,  even  if  I  had  to 
blow  up  with  it;  but  for  your  Republic,  Monsieur 
Lacrisse,  I  would  lay  down  my  life  for  it.'  Doubt- 
less there  are  points  on  which  we  all  agree.  For 
instance:  'Rally  round  the  flag.'  'No  attacks  on  the 
Army!'  'Down  with  the  traitors  in  the  pay  of  the 
foreigner  who  work  to  the  undoing  of  our  national 
defence  1'  There  we  are  on  common  ground." 

"Then  there  is  also  anti-Semitism,"  said  Henri 
Leon. 

"Anti-Semitism,"  replied  Joseph  Lacrisse,  "is 
very  popular  in  the  Grandes-ficuries  because  there 
are  so  many  rich  Jews  in  the  ward  who  are  on  our 
side." 


246  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"And  the  anti-masonic  campaign  I"  cried  Jacques 
de  Cadde,  who  was  religious. 

"All  of  us  in  the  Grandes-ficuries  are  agreed  to 
fight  the  Freemasons,"  replied  Joseph  Lacrisse. 
"The  church-goers  reproach  them  for  not  being 
Catholics.  The  Nationalist  Socialists  reproach  them 
for  not  being  anti-Semites,  and  all  our  meetings 
adjourn  to  the  cry  of  'Down  with  the  Freemasons 1' 
to  which  Citizen  Bissolo  yells :  'Down  with  the  Cas- 
socks!' Immediately  he  is  knocked  on  the  head, 
thrown  down,  trampled  upon  by  our  friends  and 
dragged  off  to  the  police-station  by  the  police.  The 
spirit  of  the  Grandes-ficuries  is  excellent,  but  there 
are  false  ideas  which  we  shall  have  to  eliminate. 
The  small  shopkeeper  does  not  yet  understand  that 
the  Monarchy  alone  will  bring  him  any  happiness. 
He  does  not  yet  feel  that  in  bowing  to  the  will  of 
the  Church  he  increases  his  own  stature.  The  shop- 
keeper's mind  has  been  poisoned  by  bad  books  and 
bad  newspapers.  He  is  against  the  abuses  of  the 
clergy  and  the  intrusion  of  priests  into  politics. 
Many  of  my  electors  call  themselves  anti-clerical." 

"Really?"  cried  Madame  de  Bonmont,  saddened 
and  surprised. 

"Madame,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde,  "it  is  the 
same  in  the  provinces.  And  I  call  that  being  against 
religion.  Anti-clericalism  spells  anti-religion." 

"We   must   not   attempt   to   disguise   the   fact," 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  247 

Lacrisse  continued.  "We  have  still  a  great  deal 
to  do.  And  how?  This  is  what  we  have  to  find 
out." 

"As  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  said  Jacques  de 
Cadde,  "I  am  in  favour  of  violent  measures.'1 

"What  measures?"  asked  Henri  Leon. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence,  and  Henri  Leon 
continued : 

"We  have  had  prodigious  successes — but  so  had 
Boulanger,  and  he  wore  himself  out." 

"He  was  worn  out,"  said  Lacrisse.  "But  we 
need  not  fear  that  we  shall  be  worn  out  in  the  same 
way.  The  Republicans,  who  put  up  a  very  good 
defence  against  him,  are  defending  themselves  very 
badly  against  us." 

"Besides,"  said  Leon,  "it  is  not  our  enemies  that 
I  fear;  it's  our  friends.  We  have  friends  in  the 
Chamber.  And  what  are  they  doing?  They 
haven't  even  provided  us  with  a  nice  little  ministerial 
crisis  complicated  by  a  nice  little  presidential  crisis." 

"That  would  have  been  desirable,"  said  Lacrisse, 
"but  it  wasn't  possible.  If  it  had  been  possible 
Meline  would  have  done  it.  We  must  be  just. 
Meline  does  what  he  can." 

"Then,"  said  Leon,  "we  must  wait  patiently  until 
the  Republicans  of  the  Senate  and  the  Chamber 
make  way  for  us.  Is  that  your  opinion,  Lacrisse?" 

"Ah,"  sighed  Jacques  de  Cadde,  "I  regret  the 


248  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

days  when  we  cracked  one  another's  heads.  Those 
were  the  good  old  days." 

"They  may  return,"  said  Henri  Leon. 

"Do  you  think  they  will?" 

"Yes,  by  Jove,  if  we  bring  them  back  I" 

"True!" 

"We  have  numbers  on  our  side,  as  General 
Mercier  said.  Let  us  act." 

"Hurrah   for   Mercier!"   cried   Jambe-d' Argent, 

"Let  us  act,"  repeated  Henri  Leon.  "And  let 
us  lose  no  time  about  it.  And,  above  all,  let  us  be 
careful  not  to  allow  ourselves  to  get  cold  feet. 
Nationalism  must  be  swallowed  hot.  As  long  as  it 
is  boiling  it's  a  cordial.  Cold,  it's  a  drug." 

"What  do  you  mean — a  drug?"  demanded 
Lacrisse  severely. 

"A  salutary  drug,  an  efficacious  remedy,  a  good 
medicine,  but  one  that  the  patient  will  not  swallow 
willingly  nor  with  pleasure.  We  must  not  let  the 
mixture  settle.  Shake  the  bottle  before  pouring  out 
the  dose,  according  to  the  precept  of  the  wise  chem- 
ist. At  the  present  moment  our  Nationalist  mixture, 
which  has  been  well  shaken,  is  of  a  beautiful  pink 
colour,  pleasant  to  look  upon  and  of  a  slightly  acid 
flavour  which  pleases  the  palate.  If  we  let  the  bot- 
tle rest,  the  mixture  will  lose  much  of  its  colour  and 
flavour.  A  sediment  will  form.  The  best  will  go 
to  the  bottom.  The  monarchical  and  clerical  in- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  249 

gradients  which  enter  into  its  composition  will  stick 
to  the  bottom,  and  the  wily  patient  will  leave  three- 
quarters  of  it  in  the  bottle.  Shake  it  up,  gentlemen, 
shake  it  up." 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  cried  young  Cadde. 

"It  is  easy  to  say  'shake  it  up,'  but  it  must  be 
done  at  the  right  time,  otherwise  you  run  the  risk 
of  upsetting  the  electors,"  objected  Lacrisse. 

"Oh,"  said  Leon,  "of  course,  if  you  are  thinking 
of  your  re-election!" 

"Who  said  I  was  thinking  of  it?     I'm  not!" 

"You  are  right,  one  mustn't  meet  trouble  so  much 
more  than  half-way." 

"What?  Trouble?  You  think  my  electors  will 
change  their  minds?" 

"On  the  contrary,  I  fear  they  will  not.  They 
were  discontented  and  they  have  elected  you.  They 
will  be  discontented  again  in  four  years'  time,  and 
then  it  will  be  with  you.  Would  you  like  a  word 
of  advice,  Lacrisse?" 

"Go  on." 

"You  were  elected  by  two  thousand  votes." 

"Two  thousand  three  hundred  and  nine." 

"Two  thousand  three  hundred  and  nine.  You 
cannot  please  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  nine 
people.  But  you  mustn't  think  only  of  the  quantity, 
you  must  think  of  the  quality  too.  You  have  among 
your  electors  a  fair  number  of  anti-clerical  Repub- 


250  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

licans,  small  shopkeepers  and  clerks.  They  are  not 
the  most  intelligent." 

Lacrisse,  who  had  become  an  earnest  person,  re- 
plied slowly  and  thoughtfully: 

"I  will  explain.  They  are  Republicans,  but,  above 
all,  they  are  patriots.  They  voted  for  a  patriot 
whose  ideas  did  not  coincide  with  theirs,  who  did 
not  think  as  they  did  on  matters  which  they  thought 
of  secondary  importance.  Their  conduct  is  perfectly 
honourable  and  I  suppose  you  do  not  hesitate  to 
approve  of  it." 

"Certainly  I  approve  of  it,  but,  between  our- 
selves, we  may  confess  that  they  are  not  particularly 
bright." 

"Not  very  bright!"  replied  Lacrisse  bitterly. 
"Not  very  bright  1  I  will  not  say  that  they  are  as 

bright  as "  He  searched  his  brain  for  the 

name  of  a  brilliant  man,  but  either  he  could  not  find 
one  among  his  friends  or  his  ungrateful  memory 
refused  the  name  he  sought,  or  perhaps  a  natural 
malevolence  caused  him  to  reject  each  name  that 
came  into  his  mind.  He  did  not  finish  his  sentence, 
remarking  rather  crossly,  "Anyway,  I  can't  see 
what's  the  good  of  railing  at  them." 

"I'm  not  railing  at  them.  I  only  say  they  are 
less  intelligent  than  your  Monarchist  and  Catholic 
electors  who  worked  for  you  with  the  good  Fathers. 
Well,  your  interest  as  well  as  your  duty  is  to  work 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  251 

for  them,  first  of  all  because  they  think  as  you  do, 
and  also  because  you  don't  hoodwink  the  good 
Fathers,  while  one  does  hoodwink  fools." 

"That's  a  mistake,  a  profound  mistake  I"  cried 
Joseph  Lacrisse.  "Anyone  can  see,  my  dear  fellow, 
that  you  don't  know  the  electors.  But  I  know  them ! 
Fools  are  not  more  easily  hoodwinked  than  others. 
They  delude  themselves,  it's  true,  and  they  delude 
themselves  at  every  moment;  but  one  doesn't  hood- 
wink them." 

"Yes,  yes,  one  does,  only  one  must  know  how 
to  set  about  it." 

"Don't  you  believe  it  I"  replied  Lacrisse,  with 
sincerity.  Then,  on  second  thoughts,  "Anyhow,  I 
don't  want  to  hoodwink  them." 

"Who's  asking  you  to?  You  must  satisfy  them. 
And  you  can  do  that  easily  enough.  You  don't  see 
enough  of  Father  Adeodat.  He's  a  good  adviser, 
and  so  moderate !  He  will  tell  you,  with  his  shrewd 
smile,  his  hands  tucked  into  his  sleeves,  'Keep  your 
majority.  Content  them.  We  shall  not  take  offence 
at  an  occasional  vote  on  the  indefeasibility  of  the 
rights  of  man  and  the  citizen,  or  even  against  the 
clergy  thrusting  themselves  into  the  Government. 
At  public  meetings  think  of  your  Republican  electors, 
and  think  of  us  in  the  Committees.  It  is  there,  in 
peace  and  silence,  that  good  work  is  done.  That 
the  greater  part  of  the  Council  occasionally  shows 


252  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

itself  to  be  anti-clerical  is  an  evil  that  we  can  bear 
with  patience.  But  it  is  important  that  the  large 
Committees  should  be  profoundly  religious.  They 
will  be  more  powerful  than  the  Council  itself;  be- 
cause an  active  compact  minority  is  always  worth 
more  than  a  lifeless,  confused  majority." 

"That,  my  dear  Lacrisse,  is  what  Father  Adeodat 
will  tell  you.  He  is  admirably  patient  and  serene. 
When  our  friends  come  and  tell  him  with  a  shudder : 
'Oh,  Father,  what  fresh  abominations  the  Free- 
masons are  preparing!  Compulsory  University 
training  for  office;  Article  7;  the  law  relating  to 
associations !  Horrible !' — the  good  Father  smiles 
and  says  nothing.  He  says  nothing,  but  this  is 
what  he  thinks:  'We've  been  through  worse  than 
this.  We  went  through  '89  and  '93,  the  suppression 
of  religious  communities  and  the  sale  of  Church 
property.  And  does  anyone  imagine  that  in  former 
days,  under  the  most  Christian  Monarchy,  we  kept 
or  increased  our  property  without  effort  or  struggle  ? 
If  so,  they  know  very  little  of  French  history.  Our 
rich  abbeys,  our  towns  and  villages,  our  serfs,  our 
meadows  and  mills,  our  woods  and  our  ponds,  our 
justice  and  our  jurisdiction — powerful  enemies,  lords, 
bishops  and  kings  were  incessantly  striving  to  dis- 
possess us  of  them.  We  had  to  defend  by  force  or 
before  the  courts  a  field  or  a  road  one  day,  the  next 
a  castle  or  a  gibbet.  To  preserve  our  riches  from 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  253 

the  cupidity  of  secular  power  we  had  continually  to 
produce  those  ancient  charters  of  Clotaire  and 
Dagobert,  which  the  impious  knowledge  taught  in 
the  Government  schools  to-day  calls  forgeries.  We 
pleaded  for  ten  centuries  against  the  king's  servants. 
We  have  only  been  pleading  thirty  years  against  the 
justice  of  the  Republic.  And  the  people  think  we 
are  growing  weary  I  No,  we  are  neither  frightened 
nor  discouraged.  We  have  money  and  property. 
It  is  the  inheritance  of  the  poor.  To  keep  and 
multiply  it  we  count  on  two  aids  that  will  not  fail 
us:  the  protection  of  God  and  the  impotence  of 
Parliament." 

"Such  are  the  thoughts  which  take  shape  be- 
neath the  shining  pate  of  Father  Adeodat.  Lacrisse, 
you  were  Father  Adeodat' s  candidate;  you  are  his 
chosen  one.  Go  and  see  him.  He  is  a  great  poli- 
tician and  will  give  you  good  advice.  He  will  teach 
you  how  to  satisfy  the  pork-butcher  who  is  a  Repub- 
lican and  how  to  charm  the  umbrella-maker  who  is 
a  Freethinker.  Go  and  see  Father  Adeodat,  see 
him  again  and  again." 

"I  have  spoken  with  him  several  times,"  said 
Lacrisse.  "He  is  certainly  very  clever.  These 
good  Fathers  have  grown  rich  with  surprising  rapid- 
ity. They  do  a  great  deal  of  good  in  the  ward." 

"A  great  deal  of  good,"  repeated  Henri  Leon. 
"The  whole  of  the  enormous  quadrilateral  between 


254  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

the  Rue  des  Grandes-ficuries,  the  riding-school 
Baron  Golsberg's  hotel  and  the  outer  boulevard  be- 
longs to  them.  They  are  working  patiently  at  a 
gigantic  scheme.  They  have  undertaken  to  erect, 
in  the  heart  of  Paris,  in  your  ward,  my  dear  fellow, 
another  Lourdes,  an  immense  basilica  which  will 
draw  millions  of  pilgrims  yearly.  In  the  mean- 
while they  are  covering  their  huge  holdings  with 
house-property." 

"I  know  that,"  said  Lacrisse. 

"I  know  it  too,"  put  in  Fremont.  "I  know  their 
architect,  a  man  called  Florimond,  an  extraordinary 
fellow.  You  know  the  good  Fathers  are  organizing 
pilgrimages  in  France  and  abroad.  Florimond, 
with  his  long  hair  and  flowing  beard,  accompanies 
the  pilgrims  on  their  visits  to  the  cathedrals.  He's 
got  the  head  of  a  master-mason  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  He  gazes  at  the  spires  and  belfries  with 
ecstatic  eyes.  He  explains  arches  in  tierce-point  and 
Christian  symbolism  to  the  ladies.  He  shows  them 
Mary,  the  flower  of  the  tree  of  Jesse,  at  the  heart 
of  the  great  rose  windows.  Tearfully,  with  sighs 
and  prayers,  he  calculates  the  resistance  of  the  walls. 
At  the  table  d'hote,  where  monks  and  pilgrims  sit 
together,  his  face  and  hands,  still  grey  with  the 
dust  of  the  old  stones  which  he  has  embraced,  bear 
witness  to  the  faith  of  the  Catholic  artisan.  He 
tells  them  his  dream:  'That  I,  a  humble  workman, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  255 

may  bring  my  stone  to  the  building  of  the  new 
sanctuary  that  will  last  as  long  as  the  world.'  Then 
he  goes  back  to  Paris  and  builds  mean  houses,  tene- 
ment houses,  with  bad  mortar  and  hollow  bricks 
laid  on  edge,  miserable  buildings  that  won't  last 
twenty  years." 

"But,"  said  Leon,  "they  are  not  required  to  last 
twenty  years.  They  are  the  houses  of  the  Grandes- 
ficuries  of  which  I  was  speaking  just  now,  and  will 
one  day  give  place  to  the  great  basilica  of  St. 
Anthony  and  its  dependencies,  a  whole  religious  city 
that  will  spring  up  in  the  next  fifteen  years.  Before 
fifteen  years  have  elapsed  the  good  Fathers  will  own 
the  whole  quarter  of  Paris  that  has  elected  our 
friend  Lacrisse." 

Madame  de  Bonmont  rose,  taking  the  Comte 
Davant's  arm. 

"You  understand,  I  don't  like  parting  with  my 
things.  Articles  loaned  run  risks.  It  makes  one  so 
anxious.  But  if  it  is  in  the  national  interest — the 
country  before  all.  You  and  Monsieur  Fremont 
will  choose  what  should  be  exhibited." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde,  as  they 
left  the  table,  "you  are  wrong,  Dellion,  not  to  try 
Father  Francois'  expedient." 

Coffee  was  served  in  the  small  drawing-room. 

Jambe-d'Argent,  the  Chouan  singer,  sat  down  at 
the  piano.  He  had  just  added  to  his  repertoire  a 


256  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

few  Royalist  songs  dating  from  the  Restoration, 
which  he  thought  would  make  a  hit  in  fashionable 
drawing-rooms.  He  sang  to  the  tune  of  La  Senti- 
nelle : 

"Au  champ  d'honneur  frappe  d'un  coup  mortal, 
Le  preux  Bayard,  dans  1'ardeur  qui  1'enflamme, 
Fier  de  perir  pour  le  sol  paternel, 
Avec  ivresse  exhalait  sa  grande  ame: 

Ah!  sans  regret  je  puis  mourir, 
Mon  sort,  dit-il,  sera  digne  d'envie, 

Puisque  jusqu'au  dernier  soupir, 

Sans  reproche  j'ai  pu  servir 

Mon  roi,  ma  belle  et  ma  patrie." 

Chassons  des  Aigues,  the  President  of  the 
Nationalist  Committee  of  Action,  went  up  to  Joseph 
Lacrisse. 

"Come  now,  my  dear  Councillor,  are  we  really 
doing  anything  on  the  fourteenth  of  July?" 

"The  Council,"  replied  Lacrisse  gravely,  "can- 
not organize  any  demonstration  of  opinion.  That 
is  not  within  its  province,  but  if  spontaneous 
demonstrations  occur " 

"Time  passes  and  the  danger  increases,"  replied 
Chassons  des  Aigues,  who  was  expecting  to  be  ex- 
pelled from  his  Club,  and  against  whom  a  charge  of 
swindling  had  been  lodged  with  a  magistrate.  "We 
must  act." 

"Don't  get  excited,"  said  Lacrisse.  "We  have 
the  men  and  we  have  the  money." 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  257 

"We  have  the  money,"  repeated  Chassons  des 
Aigues  thoughtfully. 

"With  men  and  money  one  wins  elections,"  con- 
tinued Lacrisse.  "In  twenty  months  we  come  into 
power,  and  we  shall  remain  in  power  for  twenty 
years." 

"Yes,  but  until  then — "  sighed  Chassons  des 
Aigues,  whose  pensive  eyes  gazed  anxiously  into  the 
vague  future. 

"Until  then,"  replied  Lacrisse,  "we  shall  canvass 
the  provinces.  We  have  begun  already." 

"It  would  be  better  to  bring  things  to  a  head  at 
once,"  declared  Chassons  des  Aigues  in  accents  of 
deep  conviction.  "We  cannot  allow  this  treacherous 
Government  time  to  disorganize  the  Army  and 
paralyse  the  national  defence." 

"That  is  obvious,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde.  "Now, 
follow  my  reasoning  carefully.  Our  cry  is  'Long 
live  the  Army!'  " 

"Rather !"  said  young  Dellion. 

"Let  me  speak.  Our  cry  is  'Long  live  the  Army  I' 
It  is  our  rallying  cry.  If  the  Government  begins  to 
replace  the  Nationalist  generals  by  Republicans,  we 
shall  no  longer  be  able  to  shout  'Long  live  the 
Army!'" 

"Why?"  asked  young  Dellion. 

"Because  then  we  should  be  shouting  'Vive  la 
Republique/'  That's  plain  enough." 


258  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"There  is  no  fear  of  that,"  said  Joseph  Lacrisse. 
"The  spirit  among  the  officers  is  excellent.  If  the 
Ministry  of  Treason  succeeds  in  placing  one  Repub- 
lican out  of  ten  in  the  high  command,  it  will  be  the 
end  of  all  things." 

"That  will  be  unpleasant,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde, 
"for  then  we  shall  be  forced  to  cry  'Hurrah  for 
nine-tenths  of  the  Army!'  And  that's  too  long  for 
a  slogan." 

"Be  easy!"  said  Lacrisse.  "When  we  shout 
'Hurrah  for  the  Army!'  everybody  knows  that  we 
mean  'Hurrah  for  Mercier !' ' 

Jambe-d' Argent,  at  the  piano,  sang: 

"ViveleRoi!    Vive  le  Roi! 
De  nos  vieux  marins  c'est  1'usage, 
Aucun  d'eux  ne  pensait  a  soi, 
Tout  en  succombant  au  naufrage, 

Chacun  criait  avec  courage : 

ViveleRoi!" 

"All  the  same,"  said  Chassons  des  Aigues,  "the 
fourteenth  of  July  is  a  good  day  to  begin  the  row. 
There  will  be  a  crowd  in  the  streets,  an  electrified 
crowd,  returning  from  the  review,  and  cheering  the 
regiments  as  they  pass !  With  method,  one  could  do 
a  great  deal  on  that  day,  we  could  stir  the  inarticu- 
late masses." 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  Henri  Leon.  "You  don't 
understand  the  psychology  of  crowds.  The  good 
Nationalist  returning  from  the  review  has  a  baby  in 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  259 

his  arms,  and  is  dragging  another  brat  by  the  hand. 
His  wife  is  with  him,  carrying  wine,  bread  and  ham 
in  a  basket.  You  try  to  stir  up  a  man  with  his  two 
kids  and  his  wife  carrying  the  family  lunch!  And 
then,  don't  you  see,  the  masses  are  inspired  by  very 
simple  associations  of  ideas.  You  won't  get  them  to 
riot  on  a  holiday.  To  crowds,  the  strings  of  lamps 
and  the  Bengal  lights  suggest  cheerful  and  pacific 
ideas.  They  see  a  square  of  Chinese  lanterns  in 
front  of  the  cafes,  and  a  gallery  decked  with  bunting 
for  the  musicians,  and  all  they  think  about  is  dancing. 
If  you  want  to  see  riots  in  the  streets  you  must 
choose  the  psychological  moment." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde. 

"Well,  you  must  try  to  understand,"  said 
Henri  Leon. 

"Do  you  think  I'm  a  blockhead?" 

"What  an  idea!" 

"You  can  say  it  if  you  think  so ;  you  won't  annoy 
me.  I  don't  pretend  to  be  an  intellectual.  Besides, 
I've  noticed  that  the  clever  men  fight  against  our 
ideas  and  beliefs,  that  they  want  to  destroy  all  that 
we  cherish.  So  I  should  be  exceedingly  sorry  to  be 
what  is  called  a  clever  man.  I'd  rather  be  a  fool  and 
think  what  I  think  and  believe  what  I  believe." 

"And  you  are  quite  right,"  said  Leon.  "We  have 
only  to  remain  what  we  are.  And  if  we  are  not  fools 
we  must  behave  as  if  we  are.  It  is  folly  that  succeeds 


26o  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

best  in  this  world.  The  clever  men  are  the  fools. 
They  don't  get  anywhere." 

"What  you  say  is  very  true,"  cried  Jacques 
de  Cadde. 

Jambe-d' Argent  sang: 

"Vive  le  Roi!  ce  cri  de  ralliement 
Des  vrais  Frangais  est  le  seul  qui  soit  digne. 

Vive  le  Roi!  de  chaque  regiment 
Que  ces  trois  mots  soient  la  seule  consigne." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Chassons  des  Aigues,  "you 
are  wrong,  Lacrisse,  to  reject  revolutionary  meas- 
ures; they  are  the  best." 

"Children  I"  said  Henri  Leon.  "We  have  only 
one  means  of  action,  one  only,  but  it  is  certain, 
powerful  and  efficacious.  It  is  the  Affair.  The 
Affair  gave  us  birth ;  we  Nationalists  must  not  forget 
that.  We  have  grown  and  prospered  through  the 
Affair.  It  alone  has  fed  us  and  feeds  us  still. 
Thence  comes  our  food  and  our  drink;  thence  we 
derive  the  staff  of  our  being.  If,  uprooted  from  the 
soil,  it  withers  and  dies,  we  shall  languish  and  fade 
out  of  existence. 

"We  can  pretend  to  uproot  it,  but  in  reality  we 
shall  cherish  it  carefully,  nourish  it  and  water  it. 
The  public  is  an  ass ;  moreover,  it  is  disposed  in  our 
favour.  When  it  sees  us  digging  and  scraping  and 
hoeing  round  the  plant  it  will  think  we  are  doing  our 
best  to  uproot  it  completely,  and  it  will  love  and 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  261 

bless  us  for  our  zeal.  It  will  never  dream  that  we 
may  be  lovingly  cultivating  it.  It  has  flowered  anew 
in  the  very  middle  of  the  Exhibition,  and  this  simple- 
minded  people  does  not  see  that  it  is  our  care  that 
has  achieved  this  result." 
Jambe-d' Argent  sang: 

"Puisqu'ici  notre  general 
Du  plaisir  nous  donn'  le  signal, 
Mes  amis,  poussons  a  la  vente; 
Si  nous  voulons  bien  le  r'mercier, 
Chantons,  soldat,  comme  officier: 

Moi, 
Jarnigoi ! 

Je  suis  soldat  du  Roi. 
J'm'en  pique,  j'm'en  flatte  et  j'm'en  vante." 

"That's  a  very  pretty  song,"  murmured  the 
Baronne,  with  half-closed  eyes. 

"Yes,"  said  Jambe-d'Argent,  shaking  back  his 
rough  mane,  "it's  called  Cadet-Buteux  enregimente, 
ou  le  Soldat  du  Roi.  It's  a  little  masterpiece.  It  was 
a  bright  idea  of  mine  to  unearth  some  of  these  old 
Royalist  songs  of  the  Restoration. 

"Moi, 
Jarnigoi ! 
Je  suis  soldat  du  Roi." 

Then,  suddenly  bringing  down  his  huge  hand  on 
the  tail-piece  of  the  piano,  where  he  had  laid  his 
chaplet  and  his  medals,  he  exclaimed: 

"Norn  de  Dieuf  Lacrisse,  don't  touch  my  rosary. 
It  has  been  blessed  by  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope  I" 


262  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"All  the  same,"  said  Chassons  des  Aigues,  "we 
ought  to  have  a  manifestation  in  the  streets.  The 
streets  are  ours,  and  the  people  ought  to  know  it. 
Let's  go  to  Longchamps  on  the  I4th." 

"I'm  on,"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde. 

"So  am  I,"  cried  Dellion. 

"Your  manifestations  are  idiotic,"  said  the  little 
Baron,  who  until  then  had  been  silent.  He  was  rich 
enough  to  refrain  from  belonging  to  any  political 
party.  "Nationalism  is  beginning  to  bore  me,"  he 
added. 

"Ernest!"  said  the  Baronne  with  the  gentle 
severity  of  a  mother. 

"It's  true,"  went  on  Ernest,  "your  manifestations 
bore  me  to  death." 

Young  Dellion,  who  owed  him  money,  and 
Chassons  des  Aigues,  who  wanted  to  borrow  some, 
carefully  avoided  any  direct  reply.  Chassons  tried 
to  smile,  as  though  charmed  by  his  wife,  and  Dellion 
half  assented. 

"I  don't  deny  it,  but  what  doesn't  bore  one  to 
death?" 

This  inspired  Ernest  with  profound  reflections, 
and  after  a  moment's  silence  he  said,  with  a  genuine 
accent  of  sincerity: 

"You  are  right,  everything  bores  one."  And  he 
continued,  thoughtfully:  "Take  motor-cars,  for 
instance.  They  break  down  just  when  you  don't 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  263 

want  them  to.  Not  that  one  minds  being  late,  for 
all  the  fun  one  gets  where  one  is  going;  but  I  was 
hung  up  five  hours  the  other  day  between  Marville 
and  Boulay.  Do  you  know  that  part  of  the 
country?  It  is  just  before  you  get  to  Dreux.  Not 
a  house,  not  a  tree,  not  a  dip  in  the  ground  to  be 
seen ;  nothing  but  flat,  yellow,  open  country  all  round, 
with  a  silly-looking  sky  stuck  on  top  of  it  all  like  a 
bell-glass.  One  grows  old  in  such  localities.  Never 
mind,  I'm  going  to  try  a  different  make,  seventy 
kilometres  an  hour,  and  runs  as  smoothly.  .  .  . 
Will  you  come  with  me,  Dellion?  I'm  starting 
to-night." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

HE  Trublions,"  said  Monsieur 
Bergeret,  "fill  me  with  the  keenest 
interest,  so  it  was  not  without 
pleasure  that  I  discovered  in  the 
valuable  book  of  Nicole  Langelier  of 
Paris  a  second  chapter  dealing  with  these  little 
creatures.  Do  you  remember  the  first,  Monsieur 
Goubin?" 

Monsieur  Goubin  replied  that  he  knew  it  by 
heart. 

"I  congratulate  you,"  replied  Monsieur  Bergeret, 
"for  it  is  a  perfect  breviary.  I  will  now  read  you 
the  second  chapter,  which  you  will  like  as  well  as 
the  first." 

And  the  master  read  as  follows : 

"Of  the  hurly-burly  and  the  great  din  raised  by 
the  Trublions  and  of  a  beauteous  speech  which  Robin 
Honeyman  made  to  them. 

"In  those  days  the  Trublions  made  a  great  din 
in  the  town,  city  and  university,  each  one  of  them 
smiting  with  an  iron  spoon  upon  a  'trublio/  that  is 
to  say,  an  iron  pot  or  saucepan,  and  making  a  right 

264 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  265 

tuneful  noise.  And  went  about  shrieking,  'Death  to 
traitors  and  godmothers !'  They  likewise  hanged 
upon  the  walls  and  in  secret  places  and  privy  cham- 
bers beauteous  little  scutcheons  bearing  such  devices 
as  'Death  to  the  baptized  Jews!  Buy  neither  of 
Jews  nor  of  Lombards !  Long  life  to  Tintinnabule !' 
and  armed  themselves  with  firearms  and  swords,  for 
they  were  of  noble  lineage.  Nevertheless  did  they 
receive  Martin  Baton  into  their  company,  and  were 
such  excellent  good  princes  wtthal'that  they  smote 
with  their  fists  and  disdained  not  the  sports  of 
bondsmen. 

"And  all  their  converse  was  of  hewing  and  split- 
ting in  twain,  and  they  said  in  their  language  and 
idiom,  which  was  most  meet  and  congruous  and  cor- 
responsive  to  their  manner  of  thinking,  that  it  was 
their  purpose  to  brain  the  folk,  which  is  properly  to 
draw  forth  the  brain  from  the  brain-pan  wherein 
it  doth  lie  by  the  order  and  disposition  of  nature. 
And  they  did  always  as  they  had  said,  always  and 
whenever  there  was  occasion.  And  being  but  simple 
souls  they  thought  themselves  to  be  virtuous  men, 
and  that  apart  from  them  there  were  none  righteous, 
but  all  evil,  which  was  a  marvellously  clear  ordi- 
nance, a  perfect  distinction  and  a  fair  order  of  battle. 

"And  they  had  among  them  many  beauteous  and 
most  gracious  ladies  in  sumptuous  apparel,  the  which 
very  graciously  and  without  blandishments  and  wan- 
tonness did  incite  the  aforesaid  gallant  Trublions  to 
belabour,  break  asunder,  overthrow,  transpierce  and 
discomfort  all  who  did  not  trublion. 

"Be  not  amazed  but  recognize  herein  the  natural 


266  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

inclination  of  fair  ladies  to  cruelty  and  violence  and 
the  admiration  of  high  courage  and  warlike  valour 
as  was  seen  aforetime  in  the  ancient  histories,  in 
which  it  is  related  that  the  god  Mars  was  beloved  of 
Venus  and  of  goddesses  and  mortals  in  great  store, 
and  that,  contrariwise,  Apollo,  although  a  blithe- 
some player  upon  the  viol,  received  naught  but  the 
disdain  of  nymphs  and  chamber-maids. 

"And  there  was  not  held  in  the  city  any  conven- 
ticle nor  procession  of  the  Trublions,  nor  feast  nor 
burying,  but  that  a  poor  man  or  twain  or  more  was 
belaboured  by  them,  and  left  half  or  three  parts 
dead,  yea,  wholly  dead  upon  the  road,  which  is  a 
most  marvellous  thing.  For  it  was  the  custom  that 
whenever  the  Trublions  passed  by  they  belaboured 
that  man  which  did  refuse  to  'trublion,'  and  after- 
wards did  pitifully  bear  him  upon  a  bier  unto  the 
apothecary,  and  for  this  reason  or  for  another  were 
the  apothecaries  of  the  city  upon  the  side  of  the 
Trublions. 

"In  these  days  there  was  a  great  fair  held  at 
Paris  in  France,  more  spacious  and  greater  than 
were  ever  the  fairs  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  or  Frankfort, 
or  the  Lendit,  or  the  great  fair  of  Beaucaire.  The 
said  fair  of  Paris  was  so  copious  and  abundant  in 
merchandise  and  works  of  art  and  gentle  inventions 
that  a  worthy  man  named  Comely,  who  had  seen 
much  and  was  no  homestayer,  was  wont  to  say  that 
at  the  sight,  practice  and  contemplation  of  the  same 
he  did  lose  the  care  for  his  eternal  salvation  and 
even  the  desire  for  meat  and  drink.  The  stranger 
peoples  crowded  into  the  city  of  the  Parisians  for 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  267 

to  take  their  pleasure  withal  and  to  spend  their  gold. 
Kings  and  princes  came  at  will,  causing  both  men 
and  women  to  wag  their  heads  and  say,  'This  is  a 
great  honour.' 

"As  for  the  merchants,  from  the  greatest  to  the 
least,  from  All-profit  to  Earn-little,  and  the  men  of 
trades  and  industries,  they  understood  right  well 
how  to  sell  much  merchandise  to  the  strangers  which 
had  come  to  their  city  for  the  fair.  Journeymen 
and  beggars  unfolded  their  packs,  the  keepers  of 
eating-houses  and  ale-houses  set  out  their  tables,  and 
the  whole  city  from  end  to  end  was  in  truth  an 
abundant  market-place  and  a  joyous  refectory. 

"It  must  also  be  said  that  the  aforesaid  mer- 
chants, not  all,  but  the  greater  number,  loved  the 
Trublions,  whom  they  admired  for  their  great  power 
of  voice  and  their  many  antics;  yea,  there  were  none, 
even  unto  the  Jewish  merchants  and  usurers,  who 
did  not  look  upon  them  with  respect  and  an  exceed- 
ing humble  desire  not  to  be  ill-treated  of  them. 

"Thus  did  the  common  people  and  the  merchants 
love  the  Trublions,  but  thereto  they  naturally  loved 
their  merchandise  and  means  of  livelihood,  and  were 
thereby  cast  into  great  fear  lest  by  lusty  sallies, 
sudden  breaking  forth,  kicks,  blows,  noise  and  trub- 
lionage,  they  should  overturn  their  stalls  and  booths 
throughout  all  the  four  quarters,  gardens  and  ram- 
parts of  the  city,  and  lest  the  said  Trublions,  by 
furious  and  speedy  slaughter ,  might  affright  the 
stranger  peoples  and  cause  them  to  flee  the  city  with 
their  pouches  yet  full.  Truth  to  tell  this  danger  was 
not  great.  The  Trublions  did  utter  the  most  hor- 


268  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

rible  and  terrible  threats,  also  they  slew  the  folk  in 
small  numbers,  one,  two,  or  three  at  one  time,  as  has 
been  said,  and  people  of  the  city:  never  did  they 
attack  Englishmen,  nor  Germans,  nor  other  peoples, 
but  always  their  own  countrymen.  They  killed  in 
one  place,  and  the  city  was  great,  and  there  they 
hardly  appeared.  And  it  seemed  that  their  love  for 
these  crimes  did  but  increase,  and  likewise  their 
desire  to  overthrow  yet  more.  It  seemed  not  meet 
or  seemly  that,  in  this  great  fair  of  the  world  and 
great  brotherhood,  the  Trublions  should  appear 
gnashing  their  teeth,  rolling  their  fiery  eyes,  clench- 
ing their  fists,  throwing  their  legs  abroad,  yelping 
like  mad  dogs  with  horrible  howlings,  so  that  the 
Parisians  were  in  great  fear  lest  the  Trublions  should 
perform  at  an  unseasonable  time  that  which  they 
might  perform  without  let  or  hindrance  after  the 
festival  and  the  trading,  to  wit,  the  slaughter  here 
and  there  of  a  poor  devil  or  so. 

"Then  began  the  citizens  to  say  that  they  must 
have  peace  among  themselves,  and  the  public  order 
was  given  forth  that  there  should  be  peace  through- 
out the  city,  to  which  the  Trublions  hearkened  with 
but  one  ear  and  made  reply:  'Yea,  but  to  live  with- 
out discomforting  an  enemy  or  even  only  a  stranger, 
is  that  content?  If  we  leave  the  Jews  unbaited  we 
shall  not  win  to  Paradise.  Are  we  to  fold  our  arms? 
God  hath  said  that  we  must  labour  that  we  may 
live.'  And  pondering  in  their  minds  the  universal 
feeling  and  common  purpose  they  were  greatly 
perplexed. 

"Then   did   an    ancient   Trublion,    hight   Robin 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  269 

Honeyman,  gather  together  the  chiefs  of  the 
Trublions,  being  esteemed,  venerated  and  well- 
accepted  of  them,  for  they  knew  him  to  be  expert  in 
deception  and  profuse  in  cunning  ruses  and  guileful 
devices.  Opening  his  mouth,  which  was  fashioned 
like  that  of  some  ancient  pike-fish  the  which  hath 
lost  some  teeth  but  hath  yet  teeth  enough  to  bite  the 
little  fishes,  he  said  very  sweetly: 

"  'Hearken,  friends !  Give  ear,  all !  We  be 
honest  folk  and  good  fellows,  we  be  not  mad.  We 
ask  for  peace,  we  desire  peace.  Peace  is  sweet,  peace 
is  a  precious  ointment;  peace  is  an  electuary  of 
Hippocrates,  an  Apollonian  dittany.  It  is  a  fair 
medicinal  infusion,  it  is  flower  of  the  lime,  mallow 
and  marshmallow.  It  is  sugar  and  honey.  Honey 
say  I?  Am  I  not  Robin  Honeyman?  I  do  feed  on 
honey.  Let  the  golden  age  return  and  I  will  e'en 
lick  the  honey  from  the  trunks  of  the  ancient  oak- 
trees.  I  speak  sooth.  I  desire  peace ;  ye  desire  peace.' 

"Hearing  such  words  from  Robin  Honeyman, 
then  did  the  Trublions  begin  to  make  churlish 
grimaces  and  whispered  among  themselves:  'Is  this 
Robin  Honeyman  our  friend  that  speaketh  in  this 
wise?  He  loves  us  no  longer,  he  would  deal  treach- 
erously with  us.  He  seeketh  to  do  us  a  hurt;  or 
maybe  his  wits  have  gone  wool-gathering.'  And  the 
most  trublioniacal  among  them  said:  'What  saith 
this  old  wheezer?  Doth  he  think  we  shall  put  away 
our  staves,  cudgels,  hammers,  and  mallets  and  the 
beauteous  little  fire-sticks  in  our  pockets?  What  are 
we  in  time  of  peace?  Naught.  We  are  worth  noth- 
ing but  by  reason  of  the  blows  we  deal.  Would  he 


270  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

have  us  smite  no  more?  Would  he  have  us  trublion 
no  more?'  And  a  great  clamour  and  murmuring 
arose  in  the  assembly,  and  the  council  chamber  of 
the  Trublions  was  an  angry  sea. 

"Then  did  the  good  Robin  Honeyman  spread 
forth  his  little  yellow  hands  above  the  wagging 
heads,  like  unto  a  Neptune  calming  the  tempest,  and 
when  he  had  restored  the  Trublion  ocean  to  its 
serene  and  tranquil  estate,  or  well-nigh  so,  he  spoke 
most  courteously: 

"  'I  am  your  friend,  my  sweetings,  and  your  good 
counsellor.  Hearken  what  I  would  say  before 
ye  wax  angry.  When  I  say  we  wish  for  peace  it  is 
plain  that  I  speak  of  the  pacification  of  our  enemies, 
adversaries,  and  all  contentious  persons  who  think, 
speak  and  act  contrariwise  unto  us.  It  is  visible  and 
apparent  that  I  mean  the  pacification  of  all  save 
ourselves;  of  the  police  and  magistrates  opposed  to 
us.  Pacification  of  the  civil  officers  of  the  peace 
invested  with  the  power  and  office  to  impeach, 
restrain,  repress  and  contain  Trublionage.  Pacifica- 
tion of  that  justice  and  law  by  which  we  be  menaced. 
We  desire  that  these  be  plunged  into  a  profound  and 
deadly  peace.  We  desire  for  all  that  are  not  Trub- 
lions the  gulf  and  abyss  of  pacification  and  deadly 
repose.  Requiem  aternam  dona  eis,  Domine.  This 
is  our  desire.  We  do  not  demand  our  own  pacifica- 
tion. We  are  not  pacified.  When  we  sing 
Requiescat,  is  it  for  ourselves?  We  do  not  desire  to 
sleep.  When  we  are  dead  it  is  for  a  long  time.  Nos 
qui  vivimus,  we  bestow  peace  on  others,  not  in  this 
world  but  in  the  next;  this  is  the  more  certain.  I 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  271 

desire  peace.  Am  I  then  a  simple  fellow?  Know 
ye  not  Robin  Honeyman?  My  sweetings,  I  carry 
more  than  one  trick  in  my  juggler's  pocket.  My 
lambkins,  are  you  then  less  wary  than  the  urchins 
and  schoolboys  that  sport  together,  who,  playing 
together,  when  the  one  desireth  to  gain  the  advan- 
tage over  the  other,  straightway  he  crieth  "Pax!" 
which  is  truce  and  suspension  of  hostilities,  and 
having  thus  deprived  him  of  all  defiance  and  defence 
he  doth  easily  defeat  him  and  leave  him  abashed. 

"Thus  do  I  Robin  Honeyman,  King's  Attorney. 
When  as  doth  often  hap  I  have  quiet  and  cunning 
enemies  in  the  council  chamber,  I  speak  to  them  in 
this  wise:  "Peace,  peace,  peace,  gentlemen!  Pax 
vobiscum!"  and  very  softly  slip  a  pot  of  gunpowder 
and  old  nails  beneath  the  bench  whereon  they  sit, 
with  a  fair  wick  of  which  I  hold  the  end.  Then, 
while  I  feign  a  peaceful  sleep,  I  light  the  wick  at  a 
seasonable  moment,  and  if  they  do  not  all  leap  into 
the  air  the  fault  is  none  of  my  making.  Doubtless 
the  powder  was  discovered,  and  I  await  the  next 
good  occasion. 

"  'My  good  friends,  follow  the  example  and 
behold  a  model  in  your  chiefs,  masters  and  rulers. 
See  ye  not  that  Tintinnabule  remaineth  still  and  doth 
not  for  the  present  tintinnabulate  ?  He  awaits  a  fit 
and  favourable  occasion.  Is  he  then  pacified?  You 
do  not  think  so.  And  the  young  Trublio,  doth  he 
desire  peace?  Nay,  he  likewise  waiteth.  Hearken 
diligently.  It  is  good,  profitable  and  necessary  that 
you  appear  to  desire  a  favourable,  kind,  assuaging 
and  purging  pacification.  What  doth  it  cost  you? 


272  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Naught.  And  you  shall  derive  therefrom  great 
profit.  You  that  are  not  pacified  shall  appear  paci- 
fied, and  the  other  folk  (those  that  do  not  trublion), 
who  are  in  truth  pacified,  shall  appear  unpacified, 
corrupted,  wayward,  furious,  wholly  opposed  and 
contrary  to  a  gracious  peace,  so  covetable,  pleasant 
and  desirable.  Thus  it  shall  be  made  manifest  that 
you  have  great  zeal  and  love  for  the  public  peace 
and  welfare,  and  also  that,  on  the  contrary,  your 
opponents  have  a  malign  desire  to  trouble  and  de- 
stroy the  city  and  all  that  lies  about  it.  And  say  not 
that  this  is  difficult.  It  will  be  as  you  desire  and  you 
will  make  the  simple  folk  believe  that  you  desire 
peace.  They  will  believe  what  you  tell  them,  for 
they  hearken  unto  you.  If  you  say  "I  desire  peace" 
they  will  straightway  believe  that  you  do  truly  desire 
it.  Say  it  then  to  give  them  pleasure,  for  'twill  cost 
you  naught. 

"  'Nevertheless,  for  your  enemies  and  adversaries 
which  at  first  so  piteously  bleated  "Peace  1  Peace  I" 
(for  they  be  as  gentle  as  sheep,  which  cannot  be 
gainsaid)  it  shall  be  lawful  for  you  to  brain  them 
and  to  say:  "They  desired  not  peace  therefore  we 
have  overthrown  them.  We  do  desire  peace  and  will 
bring  the  same  to  pass  when  we  are  your  ministers." 

"  'It  is  worthy  of  all  praise  pacifically  to  wage 
war.  Cry  "Peace,  Peace !"  and  smite  the  while. 
This  is  Christian-like.  "Peace,  Peace  I  This  man 
is  dead  I  Peace,  Peace  I  I  have  slain  three  men !" 
The  intention  was  pacific  and  you  will  be  judged 
according  to  your  intention.  Go  then,  cry 
"Peace!"  and  smite  stoutly.  The  bells  of  the 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  273 

monasteries  will  ring  a  merry  peal  for  you  that  love 
peace,  and  the  praise  of  the  peaceful  citizens  will 
follow  you.  They  seeing  your  victims  with  gaping 
bellies  lying  upon  the  highways  will  say:  "That  is 
well  done.  It  is  for  peace'  sake.  Long  live  peace  I 
Without  peace  no  man  can  live  at  ease  " 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ADAME  DE  BONMONT  knew 
the  Exhibition  well,  having  dined 
there  on  several  occasions.  That 
evening  she  was  dining  at  the  "Belle 
Chocolatiere" — a  Swiss  restaurant 
situated,  as  every  one  knows,  on  the  bank  of  the 
Seine — together  with  the  militant  elite  of  National- 
ism, Joseph  Lacrisse,  Henri  Leon,  Gustave  Dellion, 
Jacques  de  Cadde,  Hugues  Chassons  des  Aigues  and 
Madame  de  Gromance,  who,  as  Henri  Leon 
remarked,  was  very  like  the  pretty  servant  in 
Liotard's  pastel,  a  greatly  enlarged  copy  of  which 
served  as  a  sign  for  the  restaurant.  Madame  de 
Bonmont  was  gentle  and  tender-hearted.  It  was 
love,  relentless  love  that  had  placed  her  among  these 
warriors,  and,  like  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles,  she 
brought  among  them  a  soul  fashioned  not  for  hatred 
but  for  sympathy.  She  pitied  the  victims.  Jamont 
seemed  to  her  the  most  pathetic  of  these,  and  the 
premature  retirement  of  this  general  moved  her  to 
tears.  She  thought  of  embroidering  a  cushion  for 
him,  on  which  he  could  lay  his  glorious  head.  She 

274 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  27$ 

loved  making  such  presents,  the  value  of  which  con- 
sisted solely  in  the  feeling  that  prompted  them.  Her 
love,  strengthened  by  admiration,  for  Municipal 
Councillor  Lacrisse,  left  her  a  good  deal  of  leisure, 
which  she  employed  in  weeping  over  the  misfortunes 
of  the  Army  and  in  eating  sweets.  She  was  fast 
putting  on  flesh  and  was  becoming  quite  an  imposing 
figure. 

The  thoughts  of  young  Madame  de  Gromance 
were  of  a  less  generous  kind.  She  had  loved  and 
deceived  Gustave  Dellion,  and  then  she  had  loved 
him  no  longer.  But  as  he  removed  her  light  pink- 
flowered  cloak  under  the  respectfully-lowered  eyes 
of  the  head-waiter  on  the  terrace  of  the  "Belle 
Chocolatiere,"  Gustave  muttered  in  her  ears  words 
that  sounded  strangely  like  "jade"  and  "beastly 
strumpet."  She  did  not  allow  the  least  distress  to 
appear  on  her  face,  but  inwardly  she  thought  him 
rather  sweet,  and  felt  that  she  was  about  to  love 
him  again.  And  Gustave  thoughtfully  realized  that 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  had  spoken  like  a 
lover.  He  sat  down  solemnly  beside  Clotilde. 

The  dinner,  which  was  the  last  of  the  season,  was 
by  no  means  a  merry  one.  The  sadness  of  farewell 
was  felt  and  a  certain  Nationalist  melancholy. 
Doubtless  they  still  hoped — what  am  I  saying? — 
they  still  cherished  infinite  hopes,  but  it  is  painful, 
when  one  has  everything,  both  men  and  money,  to 


276  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

await  the  future,  the  dim,  distant  future,  the  realiza- 
tion of  long-cherished  desires  and  urgent  ambitions. 
Joseph  Lacrisse  alone  remained  calm,  thinking  that 
he  had  done  enough  for  his  King  in  being  elected 
municipal  councillor  by  the  Nationalist  Republicans 
of  the  Grandes-£curies. 

"Taking  it  altogether,"  he  said,  "everything  went 
very  well  at  Longchamps  on  the  I4th.  The  Army 
was  cheered.  There  were  shouts  of  'Hurrah  for 
Jamont !  Hurrah  for  Bougon  I'  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  enthusiasm." 

"Doubtless,  doubtless,"  said  Henri  Leon;  "but 
Loubet  returned  unmolested  to  the  filysee,  and  the 
day  did  not  forward  our  affairs  overmuch." 

Hugues  Chassons  des  Aigues,  who  had  a  fresh 
scar  on  his  nose — which  was  of  the  big  and  royal 
order — frowned  and  said  proudly: 

"I  can  tell  you  things  were  hot  at  the  Cascades. 
When  the  Socialists  cheered  the  Republic  and  the 
Army " 

"The  police,"  put  in  Madame  de  Bonmont, 
"ought  not  to  allow  things  to  be  shouted." 

"When  the  Socialists  cheered  the  Republic  and 
the  Army  we  replied,  'Long  live  the  Army  I  Death 
to  the  Jews !'  The  'white  carnations,'  whom  I  had 
hidden  in  the  crowd,  rallied  to  my  cry.  They 
charged  the  'red  eglantines'  under  a  hail  of  iron 
chairs.  They  were  magnificent.  But  it  was  no  good, 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  277 

the  crowd  would  not  respond.  The  Parisians  had 
come  with  their  wives  and  children,  with  baskets 
and  string  bags  full  of  food,  and  the  place  swarmed 
with  country  cousins  come  to  see  the  Exhibition. 
Old  farmers  with  stiff  legs  who  looked  on  with  fishy 
eyes,  peasant  women  in  shawls,  looking  as  scared  as 
owls!  How  could  we  stir  up  a  family  party  of 
that  sort?" 

"Doubtless,"  said  Lacrisse,  "the  moment  was  ill- 
chosen.  Besides,  to  a  certain  extent,  we  have  to 
respect  the  Exhibition  truce." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Chassons  des  Aigues,  "we 
hit  pretty  hard  at  the  Cascades.  I  gave  Citizen 
Bissolo  a  crack  on  the  head  that  sent  it  down  into 
his  hump.  I  saw  him  fall  to  the  ground;  he  looked 
just  like  a  tortoise.  Then,  'Hurrah  for  the  Army! 
Death  to  the  Jews !'  " 

"Doubtless,  doubtless,"  said  Henri  Leon 
gravely.  "But  'Hurrah  for  the  Army!'  and  'Death 
to  the  Jews  !'  is  a  trifle  subtle  for  crowds.  It  is — if 
I  may  say  so — too  literary,  too  classical,  and  it  is  not 
sufficiently  revolutionary.  'Hurrah  for  the  Army!' 
It  is  fine,  it  is  noble,  it  is  proper,  it  is  cold — yes,  it  is 
cold.  Let  me  tell  you,  there  is  only  one  way  to 
excite  a  crowd,  and  that  is  by  panic.  Believe  me, 
the  only  way  to  get  a  mob  of  unarmed  people  on  the 
run  is  to  put  fear  into  their  bellies.  You  should 
have  run,  crying — what  shall  I  say? — 'Save  your- 


278  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

selves!  Look  out!  You  are  betrayed!  French- 
men, you  are  betrayed !'  If  you  had  shouted  that  or 
something  like  it,  in  a  lugubrious  voice,  running 
along  the  lawn,  five  hundred  thousand  people  would 
have  run  along  with  you,  would  have  run  quicker 
than  you,  until  they  dropped.  It  would  have  been 
terrible  and  magnificent.  You  would  have  been 
knocked  down  and  trampled  to  death,  mashed  to  a 
pulp,  but  you  would  have  started  the  revolution." 

"Do  you  really  think  so?"  asked  Jacques  de 
Cadde. 

"I  am  certain  of  it,"  replied  Henri  Leon. 
"  'Treachery!'  that  is  the  true  cry  of  riot,  the  cry 
that  gives  wings  to  the  crowd  and  sets  brave  men 
and  cowards  alike  going  at  the  same  pace,  fills  a 
hundred  thousand  hearts  with  one  emotion  and  re- 
stores the  use  of  his  legs  to  the  paralytic.  Ah,  my 
dear  Chassons,  if  you  had  shouted  at  Longchamps 
'We  are  betrayed!'  you  would  have  seen  your  old 
screech-owl  with  her  basket  of  hard-boiled  eggs  and 
her  umbrella  and  your  old  fellow  with  the  stiff  legs 
running  like  hares." 

"Running  where?"  asked  Lacrisse. 

"I  don't  know.  Who  knows  where  a  panic- 
stricken  crowd  runs  to?  They  don't  know  them- 
selves. But  what  does  that  matter?  They've  been 
set  going,  and  that's  enough.  You  can't  cause  riots 
with  method.  To  occupy  strategical  points  was  well 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  279 

enough  in  the  far-off  days  of  Barbes  and  Blanqui, 
but  to-day,  what  with  the  telegraph,  telephone  or 
merely  the  police  and  their  bicycles,  any  sort  of  con- 
certed action  is  out  of  the  question.  Can  you  see 
Jacques  de  Cadde  occupying  the  police-station  in  the 
Rue  de  Crenelle,  for  instance?  No.  All  that  is 
possible  nowadays  is  a  vague,  immense,  tumultuous 
demonstration.  And  fear,  unanimous,  tragical  fear 
alone  is  capable  of  carrying  away  the  enormous 
human  masses  that  frequent  public  fetes  or  open-air 
shows.  You  ask  me  where  the  crowd  of  the  I4th  of 
July  would  have  run  to,  spurred  on  as  by  a  big  black 
flag  at  the  cries  of  'Treachery!  Treachery!  The 
foreigner!  Treachery!'  Where  would  they  have 
run  to?  Into  the  lake,  I  suppose." 

"Into  the  lake,"  repeated  Jacques  de  Cadde. 
"Well,  they  would  have  been  drowned,  that's  all." 

"Well,"  returned  Henri  Leon,  "would  thirty 
thousand  drowned  citizens  have  counted  for  noth- 
ing? Would  not  the  Ministry  and  the  Government 
have  experienced  serious  difficulty  and  real  danger  in 
the  matter?  Wouldn't  that  have  been  a  good  day's 
work?  Look  here,  you  are  no  politicians.  You 
don't  care  a  damn  whether  you  overthrow  the 
Republic  or  not." 

"You'll  see  that  after  the  Exhibition,"  said  young 
Cadde  with  the  simplicity  of  faith.  "I  myself 
smashed  one  of  them  at  Longchamps  for  a  start." 


28o  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

"Ah,  you  smashed  one  of  them,  did  you?" 
asked  young  Dellion  with  interest.  "What  sort  of 
a  specimen?" 

"A  mechanic.  It  would  have  been  better  if  he  had 
been  a  Senator,  of  course;  but  in  a  crowd  you  are 
more  likely  to  chance  on  a  workman." 

"What  was  your  mechanic  doing?"  asked  Leon. 

"He  was  shouting  'Hurrah  for  the  Army!'  so  I 
bashed  him." 

Thereupon,  fired  with  generous  emulation,  young 
Dellion  told  them  that  on  hearing  a  Socialist-Drey- 
fusard  shout  for  Loubet,  he  had  bashed  his  jaw 
for  him. 

"All  goes  well!"  said  Jacques  de  Cadde. 

"There  are  some  things  that  might  go  better," 
said  Hugues  Chassons  des  Aigues.  "Don't  let  us  be 
too  pleased  with  ourselves.  On  July  the  I4th, 
Loubet,  Waldeck,  Millerand  and  Andre  each  re- 
turned home  safe  and  sound.  They  would  not  have 
returned  had  my  advice  been  heeded.  But  no  one 
will  act,  we  are  lacking  in  energy." 

Joseph  Lacrisse  answered  gravely: 

"No,  no,  we  are  not  wanting  in  energy,  but  for 
the  moment  there's  nothing  to  be  done.  After  the 
Exhibition  we  shall  enter  upon  a  vigorous  course  of 
action.  It  will  be  a  favourable  moment.  After  her 
fete  France  will  be  suffering  from  a  bad  head  and  a 
bad  temper.  There  will  be  lock-outs  and  strikes. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  281 

Nothing  simpler  than  to  provoke  a  Ministerial  crisis, 
even  a  Presidential  crisis.  Don't  you  agree  with 
me,  Leon?" 

"Doubtless,  doubtless,"  replied  Henri  Leon. 
"But  we  must  not  forget  that  in  three  months'  time 
we  shall  be  a  little  less  numerous  and  Loubet  a  little 
less  unpopular." 

Jacques  de  Cadde,  Chassons  des  Aigues, 
Dellion,  Lacrisse  and  all  the  Trublions  tried  to 
drown  with  their  protestations  so  dismal  a  predic- 
tion, but  in  a  very  quiet  voice  Henri  Leon  proceeded : 

"It  is  inevitable.  Loubet  will  become  less  un- 
popular daily.  He  was  primarily  disliked  because  of 
the  reports  that  we  spread  about  him,  but  he  will  not 
live  up  to  all  of  them.  He  is  not  great  enough  to 
equal  the  picture  we  drew  of  him,  to  the  terror  of 
the  crowd.  We  showed  them  a  Loubet  of  a  hundred 
cubits'  stature,  protecting  the  thieves  in  Parliament 
and  destroying  the  Army.  The  reality  will  seem 
much  less  terrible.  They  will  see  that  he  does  not 
always  protect  the  thieves  or  disorganize  the  Army. 
He  will  hold  reviews.  That  will  produce  an  impres- 
sion. He  will  ride  in  a  carriage.  That  is  more  dig- 
nified than  going  on  foot.  He  will  bestow  crosses 
and  an  abundance  of  academic  palms,  and  those  who 
receive  the  cross  or  the  palms  will  refuse  to  believe 
that  he  intends  to  betray  France.  He  will  make 
tactful  speeches;  you  may  be  sure  of  that;  tactful 


282  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

because  utterly  inane.  If  he  wants  to  be  acclaimed 
he  has  only  to  travel  about.  The  country  people 
will  cheer  for  the  President  as  he  passes,  just  as 
though  he  were  the  kind-hearted  tanner  whose  loss 
we  all  deplore  because  he  loved  the  Army.  And  if 
the  Russian  alliance  were  pulled  off — the  bare  idea 
of  such  a  thing  makes  me  shudder — you  would  see 
our  Nationalist  friends  unharness  his  carriage  and 
drag  it  through  the  streets.  I  don't  say  he's  a  genius, 
but  he's  not  a  bigger  fool  than  the  rest  of  us,  and  he 
is  trying  to  improve  his  position.  That's  only  nat- 
ural. We  want  to  overthrow  him  and  he  is  wearing 
us  out." 

"I  defy  him  to  wear  us  out,"  cried  young 
Cadde. 

"Time  alone  will  suffice  to  wear  us  out,"  replied 
Henri  Leon.  "How  fine  our  Municipal  Council  was 
on  the  evening  of  the  poll  that  gave  us  the  majority! 
'Hurrah  for  the  Army !  Death  to  the  Jews !'  yelled 
the  electors,  drunk  with  joy,  pride  and  love.  And 
the  successful  candidates,  beaming,  replied,  'Death 
to  the  Jews!  Hurrah  for  the  Army!'  But  as  the 
new  Council  can  neither  free  the  sons  of  the  electors 
from  military  service  nor  distribute  the  money  of  the 
rich  Jews  among  the  small  shopkeepers  nor  even 
spare  the  working-man  the  horrors  of  slack  times,  it 
will  betray  vast  hopes  and  become  as  odious  as  it  was 
once  desirable.  It  will  shortly  run  the  risk  of  becom- 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  283 

ing  unpopular  over  questions  of  monopoly,  gas, 
water  and  omnibuses." 

"You  are  wrong,  my  dear  Leon,"  cried  Joseph 
Lacrisse.  "There  is  nothing  to  fear  with  regard  to 
the  renewal  of  monopolies.  We  say  to  the  electors, 
'We  are  giving  you  cheap  gas,'  and  the  electors  will 
not  complain.  The  Municipal  Council  of  Paris, 
elected  on  an  exclusively  political  programme,  will 
exercise  a  decisive  influence  on  the  political  and  na- 
tional crises  that  will  follow  immediately  after  the 
closing  of  the  Exhibition." 

"Yes,  but  in  order  to  do  that,"  said  Chassons  des 
Aigues,  "it  will  have  to  place  itself  at  the  head  of  the 
revolutionary  movement.  If  it  is  moderate,  prudent, 
conciliatory,  considerate,  all  is  lost.  The  Council 
must  realize  that  it  has  been  elected  to  overthrow 
and  smash  Parliamentarianism." 

"Blow  the  trumpet!  Blow  the  trumpet  I"  cried 
Jacques  de  Cadde. 

"Little  must  be  said,  but  that  little  to  the 
point,"  continued  Chassons  des  Aigues. 

"Blow  the  trumpet !    Blow  the  trumpet !" 

Chassons  des  Aigues  disdained  the  interruption. 

"A  pledge,  a  simple  pledge  should  be  expressed 
from  time  to  time.  Such  as :  'Impeachment  of  the 
Ministers '  " 

"Blow  the  trumpet!  Blow  the  trumpet!"  cried 
young  Cadde  louder  than  ever. 


284  MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS 

Chassons  des  Aigues  tried  to  make  him  listen 
to  reason. 

"I  am  not  opposed  on  principle  to  our  friends 
sounding  the  hallali  of  the  parliamentarians,  but  in 
public  gatherings  the  trumpet  is  the  supreme  argu- 
ment of  the  minority.  We  must  keep  it  for  the 
Luxembourg  and  Palais  Bourbon.  I  should  like  to 
point  out,  my  dear  fellow,  that  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
we  are  in  the  majority." 

This  consideration  did  not  move  young  Cadde, 
who  continued  to  vociferate : 

"Blow  the  trumpet !  Blow  the  trumpet  I  Do  you 
know  how  to  blow  the  trumpet,  Lacrisse?  If  you 
don't,  I'll  teach  you ;  it  is  quite  essential  for  a  munici- 
pal councillor  to  know  how  to  blow  the  trumpet." 

"To  resume,"  said  Chassons  des  Aigues,  as  solemn 
as  a  judge,  "the  first  pledge  of  the  Council  should 
be  the  impeachment  of  the  Ministers ;  the  second,  the 
impeachment  of  the  Senators ;  and  the  third,  the  im- 
peachment of  the  President  of  the  Republic.  After 
a  few  resolutions  of  this  description  the  Ministry 
will  proceed  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Council.  The 
Council  resists,  and  makes  a  vehement  appeal  to 
public  opinion.  Outraged  Paris  rises " 

"Do  you  think  so?"  asked  Henri  Leon  quietly. 
"Do  you  really  think,  Chassons,  that  outraged  Paris 
will  rise?" 

"I  do  think  so,"  replied  Chassons  des  Aigues. 


MONSIEUR  BERGERET  IN  PARIS  285 

"I  do  not  think  so,"  said  Henri  Leon.  "You 
know  Citizen  Bissolo — since  it  was  you  who  nearly 
brained  him  on  the  fourteenth  of  July  at  the  review 
— I  know  him  too.  One  night,  on  the  boulevard, 
during  a  demonstration  following  the  election  of  the 
deplorable  Loubet,  Citizen  Bissolo  came  to  me  as 
the  most  constant  and  most  generous  of  his  enemies. 
We  exchanged  a  few  words.  All  our  paid  roughs 
were  shouting  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  Shouts  of 
'Hurrah  for  the  Army!'  resounded  from  the  Bastille 
to  the  Madeleine.  Smiling  and  amused,  the 
passers-by  were  on  our  side.  Bissolo  stretched  out 
his  long  hunchback's  arm  like  a  scythe  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  crowd  and  remarked:  'I  know  the  jade. 
Mount  her,  and  she'll  break  your  back  by  suddenly 
lying  down  when  you  aren't  expecting  it.'  Those 
were  the  words  of  Citizen  Bissolo  as  we  stood  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  Drouot  on  the  day  when  Paris 
offered  herself  to  us." 

"But  this   Bissolo   of  yours   is   a   rogue,"   cried 
Joseph  Lacrisse.    "He  insults  the  people." 

"He  is  a  prophet,"  replied  Henri  Leon. 

Young     Jacques     de     Cadde     chanted,     in    his 
thick  voice : 

"Blow  the  trumpet  1    It's  the  only  way  I" 


THE  END. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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